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Drawn  by  Perriton  Maxwell. 
Used  by  permission   i>f  the 
Curtis  Publishing  Company, 
Philadelphia. 


A   Kipling   Primer 


A  Kipling  Primer 


Including  Biographical   and  Critical   Chapters^ 

an    Index   to   Mr.  Kipling's    Principal 

Writings,  and    Bibliographies 


By 

FREDERIC    LAWRENCE    KNOWLES 

Editor  of 
"Golden  Treasury  of  American  Lyrics,"  etc. 


BOSTON 
BROWN    AND    COMPANY 

1899 


Copyright,  1899, 
By  Frederic  Lawrence  Knowles. 


BOSTON,    U.S.A. 


Go  fll>£  tfatber 


258542 


Prefatory    Note 

A  HIS  little  book  has  been  written  in  the  hope  that 
it  may  minister  to  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  Mr. 
Kipling's  prose  and  poetry.  The  world  has  never 
before  witnessed  the  spectacle  of  a  collected  edition 
of  an  author's  works  issued  within  a  dozen  years  of 
the  date  on  his  earliest  title-page.  A  body  of  criti- 
cism is  bound  to  grow  up  around  the  writings  of  a 
genius  so  commanding  and  brilliant.  If  the  Primer 
serve  as  an  unpretentious  forerunner  of  this  literature, 
it  asks  nothing  more. 

In  assigning  stories  and  poems  to  their  respective 
volumes,  I  have  made  reference  not  to  the  sumptuous 
and  expensive  Outward  Bound  edition,  but  to  the 
Appleton  editions  of  The  Seven  Seas  and  Many 
Inventions,  Century  Company  editions  of  the  Jungle 
Books,  Doubleday  &  McClure  editions  of  the  Day's 
Work  and  From  Sea  to  Sea,  and  Macmillan  editions 
of  the  remaining  books. 

It  should  be  said,  however,  that  several  of  the 
early  collections  of  stones  are  in  a  few  instances 
contained  in  one  volume.  For  example,  Macmillan 
has  bound  together  Soldiers  Three,  The  Story  of  the 
Gadsbys,  and  In  Black  and  White  under  the  general 
(7) 


3  A   Kipling   Primer 

title  Soldiers  Three.  But  a  tale  from  In  Black  and 
White  is  in  this  Primer  assigned  to  that  book,  not 
to  Soldiers  Three.  The  Macmillan  edition  of  Under 
the  Deodars  contains  also  The  Phantom  'Rickshaw,  and 
Other  Tales  and  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  and  Other  Stories. 
The  same  rule  has  been  observed  in  this  volume  as 
in  the  other. 

In  the  Outward  Bound  edition  the  order  of  the 
tales  is  different,  the  contents  having  been  rearranged 
by  Mr.  Kipling  on  a  more  logical  plan.  Of  the  two 
volumes  devoted  to  the  'Jungle  Books,  for  instance, 
the  first  contains  all  the  tales  in  which  Mowgli 
figures.  It  very  properly  concludes  with  "  In  the 
Rukh,"  transferred  from  Many  Inventions.  The 
second  volume  contains  the  stories  in  the  Jungle 
Books  which  have  no  reference  to  Mowgli,  such  as 
«  Quiquern,"  "  The  White  Seal,"  and  "  Rikki-Tikki- 
Tavi."  "  Under  Soldiers  Three  will  be  found  all  the 
events  in  which  Mulvaney,  Ortheris,  and  Learoyd 
were  concerned,  followed  by  other  military  stories. 
In  Black  and  White  covers  tales  of  native  life  in 
India,  and  The  Phantom  "Rickshaw  those  which  deal 
with  matters  more  or  less  between  the  two  worlds." 
Life's  Handicap  and  Many  Inventions  do  not  appear 
among  the  titles  of  the  Outward  Bound  edition,  the 
stories  in  those  books  being  distributed  among  several 
volumes. 

Appended  to  the  abstracts  of  stories  and  ballads, 
in  Chapter  Three,  will  be  found,  in    many  cases, 


Prefatory   Note  9 

brief  criticisms  from  well-known  authorities.  These 
are  included  for  their  suggestiveness  rather  than  for 
any  value  as  final  estimates.  Indeed,  the  editor  has 
been  at  no  pains  to  add  them  to  all  or  even  to  most 
of  the  outlines,  nor  has  he  in  any  case  endeavored 
to  harmonize  them  with  one  another.  While  in  the 
main  they  are  astute,  and  doubtless  trustworthy,  in 
many  instances  they  will  be  found  chiefly  to  illustrate 
the  fact  that  opinions  even  of  high  authorities  are 
merely  personal  estimates  and  frequently  prove  to  be 
very  wide  of  the  mark. 

I  wish  to  thank  the  assistants  in  the  Boston  Public 
and  Harvard  College  libraries  for  numerous  courtesies, 
and  especially  to  thank  Mr.  Capen,  Librarian  of  the 
Haverhill  (Mass.)  City  Library,  for  his  generous  aid 
and  cooperation. 

Tilton,  N.H.,  May  I,  1899. 

SECOND    NOTE. 

As  this  book  is  on  the  point  of  going  to  press 
(July  1),  there  appears  an  inexpensive  set  of  Mr. 
Kipling's  works  in  fifteen  volumes,  authorized  and 
copyrighted  by  the  author.  Except  for  the  inclusion 
of  From  Sea  to  Sea  in  two  volumes  and  the  addition 
of  Departmental  Ditties  to  the  volume  containing 
Barrack-Room  Ballads,  the  contents  and  arrange- 
ment of  this  edition  call  for  no  changes  in  the 
Kipling  Primer.      Life's  Handicap  and   Many  Invert- 


io  A   Kipling  Primer 

tions  are  retained  among  the  titles  of  this  latest 
edition,  and  the  author  has  in  general  followed  the 
arrangement  of  the  earlier  volumes,  on  which  this 
handbook  is  based,  rather  than  the  arrangement  of 
the  Outward  Bound  edition. 

,    July  5,  1899. 


Contents 


PAGE 

Prefatory  Note 

CHAPTER   I 

Biographical  Sketch 13 

*/  } .    Birth  and  Parentage 13 

2.    Childhood 15 

^3.    Schooldays •  16 

1/  4.    Journalism  in  India 18 

5.  Early  Writings 20 

6.  American  Trip 21 

7.  Life  in  London 22 

8.  Marriage 22 

9.  Residence  in  the  United  States     ....  23 

10.  England  and  South  Africa 24 

11.  Visit  to  America  and  Illness 25 

12.  Death  of  Mr.  Kipling's  Daughter      ...  26 

13.  Restoration  to  Health 27 

14.  Personality 28 

15.  Portraits 3° 

CHAPTER    II 

Mr.    Kipling's  Writings 32 

1 .  The  Star  in  the  East 3 2 

2.  The  Zenith  of  Fame 32 

^—3.    Can  we  Account  for  Kipling's  Vogue?  .      .  33 

(») 


12  A   Kipling   Primer 

PAGE 

--*4.    Why  Kipling  may  be  Called  Great    ...  33 

.  5.     Message  and  Style  Analyzed 34 

.6.     Message  :   Truth 34 

.  7.     Message  :    Human  Interest 35 

•  8.     Message  :    Variety 38 

•   9.    Style  :    Force 40 

•  10.    Style  :    Precision 40 

Si  I.     Mr.  Kipling's  Three  Periods        ....  42 

» 1  2.    Satirical  Treatment  of  Character  ....  42 

•13.    Sympathetic  Treatment  of  Character        .      .  48 

.14.    Spiritual  Treatment  of  Character        ...  50 

•15.     General  Characteristics:    Originality        .  57 

ti6.     Imperialism 60 

'17.     Treatment  of  Nature 63 

"18.     Description 65 

•19.     Characterization 66 

•20.     Mastery  of  the  Short  Story 71 

•  21.     Mastery  of  Metre 73 

•  22.    Diction 75 

•  23.     Figurative  Language      .......  79 

•  24.    Prose  Style  in  General 81 

25.  Influence 84 

26.  Summary 85 

CHAPTER    III 

Index  to   Mr.  Kipling's  Principal  Writings      .  87 

Appendix 193 

Bibliography  of  First  Editions 200 

Bibliography  of   Reference  Articles  ....  207 

Index  to   Authorities   Quoted 217 


A  Kipling  Primer 

CHAPTER   ONE 

BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

i.    Birth  and   Parentage. —  Rudyard  Kipling 
was  born    Dec.  30,  1865,   m   Bombay,   India.      His 
father's    ancestors    were    English    and    Dutch;    his   I 
mother's    English,     Scotch,    and    Irish.       Both    his 
grandfathers  were  Wesleyan   ministers. 

Rudyard's  father,  John  Lockwood  Kipling,  was 
born  in  Yorkshire,  and  passed  the  early  years  of 
his  manhood  in  the  Burslem  (Staffordshire)  potteries 
as  a  modeller  and  designer.  On  leaving  the  potteries 
he  worked  for  a  time  in  a  sculptor's  studio,  and 
finally  received  an  appointment  on  the  staff  of  the 
executive  art  department  of  the  South  Kensington 
Museum.  In  1865  he  was  appointed  Professor  of 
Architectural  Sculpture  in  the  School  of  Art  at 
Bombay.  After  having  been  engaged  for  several 
years  in  making  casts  of  the  mythological  sculpture 
of  the  Rock  Cut  Temples   in  the  central  provinces, 


. 


14 


A   Kipling   Primer 


he  was  appointed  curator  of  the  Government 
Museum  at  Lahore.  Mr.  Kipling  is  said  to  have 
done  more  than  any  other  man  toward  preserving 
the   native  art   of  India. 

The  poet's  father  was  more,  however,  than  a 
mere  artist,  in  the  narrower  sense.  His  scholarly 
and  literary  aptitudes  are  shown  in  Beast  and  Man 
in  India,  1891,  a  book  which  brought  him  wide  and 
well-deserved  recognition.  Regarding  his  person- 
ality, Mr.  E.  Kay  Robinson,  who  knew  the  family 
intimately  at  Lahore,  has  this  testimony :  "  John 
Lockwood  Kipling,  the  father,  a  rare,  genial  soul, 
with  happy  artistic  instincts,  a  polished  literary  style, 
and  a  generous,  cynical  sense  of  humor,  was,  with- 
out exception,  the  most  delightful  companion  I  had 
ever  met."  1 

Rudyard's  mother  was  a  Miss  Alice  Macdonald, 
daughter  of  the  Methodist  preacher  at  Endon,  Staf- 
fordshire, and  a  young  woman  of  great  beauty.  She 
was  one  of  three  sisters  who  were  noted  for  their 
exceptional  culture  and  talents.  Both  of  the  others 
married  distinguished  English  artists,  one  being  the 
wife  of  Sir  Edward  J.  Poynter,  president  of  the 
Royal  Academy,  and  the  other  the  wife  of  Sir 
Edward  Burne-Jones.  Mr.  Robinson  has  written 
also  of  Mrs.  Kipling  :  "  Mrs.  Kipling,  the  mother, 
preserved  all  the  graces  of  youth,  and  had  a  sprightly, 

1  McClure's  Magazine,  July,  1896.  See  also  Boston  Tran- 
script, March  2,  1899,  and  Congregationalist,  March  16,  1899. 


Biographical   Sketch  15 

if  occasionally   caustic  wit,  which  made  her  society 
always  desirable."  * 

Such  were  the  parents  of  the  most  eminent  of 
living  poets.  He  was  born  into  an  atmosphere  of 
ideal  charm  and  culture,  and  yet  the  circumstances 
of  his  birth  in  the  great  cosmopolitan  city  of  west- 
ern India  left  much  to  be  desired.  There  is  sincere 
pathos  in  those  lines  of  The  Native-Born : 

"  We  learned  from  our  wistful  mothers 
To  call  old  England  «home.'  " 

2.  Childhood.  —  Rudyard  Kipling  was  named 
from  Rudyard  Lake,  Staffordshire,  on  the  banks  of 
which  John  Kipling  first  met  Miss  Alice  Macdonald. 
As  a  child  the  poet  was  familiarly  called  "  Ruddie." 
It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  as  he  grew  in  years  he 
"scorned  all  playthings  that  were  commonplace 
toys;  but  any  sort  of  instructive  puzzle  or  game 
that  required  thought  and  intelligence  appealed  to 
him  at  once,  and  with  these  he  found  endless  pleas- 
ure and  pastime."  When,  under  his  mother's 
guidance,  he  had  once  mastered  the  art  of  reading, 
it  was  difficult  to  get  him  to  play  with  the  other 
boys.  He  was  precocious,  and  filled  with  curiosity 
on  all  subjects. 

The  first  five  years  of  his  life,  excepting  a  short 
visit  to  England  with  his  mother,  were  spent  in  his 
native  city  or  its  neighborhood,  but   in   1871  he  was 

1  McClure's,  July,  1896. 


1 


1 6  A   Kipling   Primer 

taken  to  England  and  left,  together  with  a  younger 
sister,  in  the  care  of  an  elderly  relative  at  Southsea. 
Here,  as  it  is  generally  believed,  he  spent  several 
unhappy  years.  If  it  is  true  that  Baa,  Baa,  Black 
Sheep  and  the  opening  chapter  of  The  Light  that 
Failed  are  largely  autobiographical,  we  can  only 
wonder  that  Rudyard  escaped  growing  up  sullen 
and  embittered.  It  must  be  admitted  that  he  was 
strong-willed  and  impetuous,  and  never  an  "  easv 
boy  to  manage,"  yet  no  amount  of  repressive  and 
ill-advised  methods  of  discipline  sufficed  to  take  from 
him  his  healthy  outlook  on  life  or  enjoyment  of  its 
pleasures. 

Perhaps  it  was  well,  however,  that  he  was  not  kept 
longer  in  his  uncongenial  surroundings.  In  1877 
his  mother  visited  him,  and  his  father  joined  her  the 
following  year.  The  boy  spent  several  weeks  with 
the  senior  Kipling  in  Pa^i^iand  when  his  parents 
returned  to  India,  in  ilffti?  he  was  entered  as  a 
pupil  at  the  United  Service  College  of  Westward 
Ho,  at  Bideford,  North  Devon. 

3.  Schooldays. — Westward  Ho,  thus  named 
from  Charles  Kingsley's  story  (it  was  wjxhin  two 
miles  of  Amyas  Leigh's  house  at  Northam),  stood 
on  the  shore  of  the  British  Channel.  It  was  under 
the  direction  almost  wholly  of  civil  or  military  offi- 
cers, and  the  pupils  were  chiefly  officers'  sons  who 
eventually  went  into  the  Indian  service.  Rudyard 
Kipling  was  noted   at  school   principally  for  his  wit, 


Biographical   Sketch  17 

his  gift  of  story-telling,  and  his  facility  at  writing. 
He  held  for  two  years  the  editorship  of  the  United 
Service  College  Chronicle,  where  many  bright  verses 
and  articles  appeared  over  his  signature.  As  a 
scholar  he  was  not  distinguished,  though  he  was 
extraordinarily  quick  at  any  intellectual  problem 
when  he  chose  to  apply  his  mind  to  it,  and  he 
carried  away  from  the  institution  a  well-deserved 
first  prize  in  English  literature.  J  If  one  cares  to 
know  the  schoolboy  Kipling  one  must  read  the 
Stalky  stories,  where  the  nascent  author  figures  as 
"  Beetle."  "  Stalky  "  and  "  McTurk  "  were  Beres- 
ford  and  Dunsterville,  who  shared  Kipling's  study 
and  were  his  .sworn  confederates.  Each  one  of  the 
trio  has  since  made  his  mark,  the  latter  two  having 
"  passed  brilliantly  into  the  scientific  branch  of  the 
British  military  service."  Kipling's  nickname  was  \ 
"  Gigs "  or  "  Giggsy,"  given  him  Because  of  the  \ 
.huge  glasses  his  near-sightedness  forced  him  to  wear.  > 
This  affliction  prevented  his  engaging  actively  in 
most  athletic  sports,  though,  in  common  with  all 
his  schoolmates,  he  was  a  good  swimmer.  He 
rambled  much  about  the  seashore,  also,  and  was  an 
adept  in  catching  and  training  the  young  jackdaws 
which  nested  in  the  neighboring  cliffs.  The  life  I 
at  the  college  was  of  the  most  rough-and-tumble  I 
kind,  floggings  with  cane  and  birch  alternating  with 
the  laxest  sort  of  discipline  or  absence  of  it,  which 
resulted  in   the  boys    roaming  over   the  country   in 


i  8  A   Kipling   Primer 

predatory  bands,  poaching,  fighting,  and.  playing 
tricks  on  the  farmers.  While  roguish  rather  than 
malicious,  Rudyard  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the 
most  irrepressible  of  the  lot,  "always,"  as  an  old 
schoolmate  tells  us,  "  in  some  harmless  mischief, 
always  playing  off  some  joke  upon  either  one  of 
his  masters  or  his  schoolfellows,  no  respecter  of 
persons,  and  not  caring  one  jot  what  good  or  evil 
opinion  those  held  of  him  with  whom  he  came  in 
daily   contact." 

Young  Kipling  passed  his  holidays  at  South  Ken- 
sington, in  the  home  of  his  aunt,  Mrs.  Burne-Jones, 
where  he  became  associated  with  men  of  the  highest 
intellectual  attainments,  notably  with  William  Mor- 
ris, a  close  intimate  of  the  family.  The  influence 
of  such  associations  on  the  impressionable  boy  can- 
not easily  be  estimated. 

4.  Journalism  in  India.  —  At  the  age  of  seven- 
teen Kipling  joined  his  parents  in  India,  and  through 
his  father's  influence  obtained  a  position  on  the  edi- 
torial staff  of  the  Lahore  Civil  and  Military  Gazette. 
Here  he  served  an  apprenticeship  of  five  years,  leav- 
ing in  1887  to  become  assistant  editor  of  the  Pioneer 
at  Allahabad.     The  latter  position  he  held  till  1889. 

Perhaps  the  drudgery  of  a  newspaper  office,  varied 
by  missions   to  the  frontier  and  to  different  parts  of 
V  India,  was  the  best  possible  preparation  for  his  after- 
work.      Mr.    Robinson,  who    has    been    previously 
quoted,  was   at   this   time  the  editor  of  the  Gazette. 


Biographical   Sketch  19 

Of  his  young  assistant  he  says  :  "  My  experience 
of  him  as  a  newspaper  hack  suggests  that  if  you  want 
to  find  a  man  who  will  cheerfully  do  the  office  work 
of  three  men  you  should  catch  a  young  genius. 
Like  a  blood  horse  between  the  shafts  of  a  coal- 
wagon,  he  may  go  near  to  bursting  his  heart  in  the 
effort,  but  he'll  drag  that  wagon  along  as  it  ought 
to  go.  The  amount  of  'stuff'  that  Kipling  got 
through  in  the  day  was  indeed  wonderful ;  and 
though  I  had  more  or  less  satisfactory  assistants  after 
he  left,  and  the  staff*  grew  with  the  paper's  pros- 
perity, I  am  sure  that  more  solid  work  was  done  in 
that  office  when  Kipling  and  I  worked  together  than 
ever  before  or  after."  * 

But  Kipling  was  far  more  than  a  drudge.  Mr. 
Robinson  says  further:  "  He  was  always  the  best  of 
good  company,  bubbling  over  with  delightful  humor, 
which  found  vent  in  every  detail  of  our  day's  work 
together ;  and  the  chance  visitor  to  the  editor's  office 
must  often  have  carried  away  very  erroneous  notions 
of  the  amount  of  work  which  was  being  done  when 
he  found  us  in  the  fits  of  laughter  that  usually  ac- 
companied our  consultations  about  the  make-up  of 
the   paper."  2 

The  astonishing  local  color  in  Kipling's  tales  is 
the  product  of  first-hand  observation.  He  neglected 
no  opportunity  for  gaining  experience.      Natives  of 


1  McClure's,  July,  1896. 
"Ibid. 


20  A   Kipling   Primer 

all  races  and  castes  were  known  to  him  familiarly  ;  he 
interviewed  priests  and  fakirs  ;  he  was  a  boon  com- 
panion of  Tommy  Atkins ;  he  explored  Chinese 
opium-dens  ;  he  absorbed  the  technical  jargon  of 
popular  sports;  he  mastered  the  details  of  the  Eng- 
lish administration  ;  he  haunted  the  society  of  Mrs. 
Hauksbee  and  her  set  in  order  to  photograph  on  his 
memory  every  gesture  and  every  word.  At  no  time 
in  his  life  more  than  when  in  India  did  he  justify  Mr. 
James  Whitcomb  Riley's  apt  characterization  :  "  He 
is  a  regular  literary  blotting-pad,  soaking  up  every- 
thing on  the  face  of  the  earth." 

5.  Early  Writings.  —  Young  Kipling  found 
leisure  outside  of  office  hours  to  dash  off  short 
stories  and  satirical  ballads  which  appeared  from 
time  to  time  in  Indian  newspapers  and  won  imme- 
diate popularity.  As  early  as  1886  his  name  was 
well  known  throughout  India.  In  this  year  the  best 
of  the  satirical  verses  were  put  together  at  Lahore  in 
"  a  sort  of  a  book,  a  lean,  oblong  docket,  to  imitate  a 
Government  envelope,  bound  in  brown  paper,  and 
tied  with  red  tape."  It  was  not  long  before  it 
became  a  cloth-bound  volume  with  gilt  top,  for  sev- 
eral editions  followed,  but  the  author  confesses  to 
have  "  loved  it  best  when  it  was  a  little  brown 
baby  with  a  pink  string  around  his  stomach."  So 
rare  is  the  first  edition  now  that  a  copy  in  good 
condition  will  fetch  nearly  or  quite  one  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars. 


Biographical  Sketch  21 

The  year  1888  was  one  of  extraordinary  pro- 
ductiveness. Not  fewer  than  seven  books  of  prose 
fiction  were  published  by  Mr.  Kipling.  Of  these 
the  most  noted  if  not  the  most  notable  is  Plain  Tales 
from  the  Hills.  Before  its  publication  the  author 
had  been  popular  and  widely  known ;  with  its  pub- 
lication  came   fame. 

6.  American  Trip.  —  But  Mr.  Kipling's  fame 
was  still  confined  almost  wholly  to  Anglo-India. 
In  1889,  sent  by  the  Pioneer,  to  which  he  contributed  \/ 
entertaining  letters  of  travel,  he  left  India  for  Eng- 
land, armed  with  the  slender  volumes  which  had 
been  printed  in  Lahore  and  Allahabad,  and  with  | 
manuscripts  in  which  he  had  unbounded  faith.  He 
returned  by  way  of  Japan,  San  Francisco,  and  New 
York,  thinking  first  to  launch  his  literary  ventures 
in  the  United  States.  In  this  he  was  disappointed. 
But  if  American  publishers  looked  askance,  his  trip 
furnished  pleasurable  experiences  and  a  liberal  supply 
of  "copy."  Note-book  in  hand,  he  visited  the 
Golden  Gate  and  the  Yellowstone;  he  explored 
Chicago,  Salt  Lake  City,  Buffalo,  and  New  York. 
He  fished  for  salmon  in  the  Clackamas  ;  he  watched 
the  evolutions  of  the  United  States  army,  and  studied 
rural  America  at  Musquash  on  the  Monongahela. 
The  Pioneer  gives  us  the  results  of  his  impressions  : 
the  most  bitterly  satiric  picture  of  American  society 
which  the  world  had  seen  since  the  publication  of 
Dickens'  American  Notes  in  1842. 


22  A  Kipling  Primer 

7.  Life  in  London.  —  The  autumn  of  1889 
saw  Mr.  Kipling  established  in  London  fighting  for 
recognition  from  the  public.  Although  his  stories 
found  a  publisher,  they  obtained  almost  no  popular 
sale,  until  a  favorable  review  in  the  Times  (1890) 
brought  him  suddenly  into  notice.  The  most 
obscure  author  in  London  awoke  to  find  himself  the 
most  talked  of.  The  World  pronounced  him  "  the 
literary  hero  of  the  present  hour."  A  friend  who 
visited  him  at  his  chambers  in  the  Strand  discovered 
"  a  vast  number  of  invitations  from  the  best  repre- 
sentative people  of  England  lying  on  the  table  un- 
answered." It  was  literary  not  social  success  which 
he  coveted.  "I  want  to  give  good  work,"  he  said 
to  a  reporter  of  the  World,  "  that  is  my  only  con- 
cern in  life." 

8.  Marriage.  —  In  1891  Mr.  Kipling  made  a 
long  voyage  to  South  Africa,  Australia,  Ceylon,  and 
New  Zealand.  In  the  same  year  he  met  in  London 
Mr.  Wolcott  Balestier,  the  brilliant  young  Ameri- 
can author  with  whom  he  afterward  collaborated 
The  Naulahka.  He  became  acquainted  also  with 
Balestier's  sister  Caroline,  between  whom  and  him- 
self there  sprang  up  a  strong  friendship  that  ripened 
into  love.  They  were  married  in  London,  Jan.  18, 
1892. 

Caroline  Starr  Balestier  is  the  eldest  daughter  of 
the  late  H.  Wolcott  Balestier,  of  New  York  City,  and 
comes  of  distinguished  ancestry  on  both  sides.      Her 


Biographical  Sketch  23 

maternal  grandfather,  the  late  Judge  Peshine  Smith, 
was  said  by  William  H.  Seward  to  have  a  profounder 
knowledge  of  international  law  than  any  other  living 
man.  It  was  Judge  Smith  who,  on  the  recommen- 
dation of  Seward,  drafted  for  the  Mikado  of  Japan 
commercial  treaties  between  that  nation  and  the 
great  powers  of  the  world.  His  large  fortune  was 
left  to  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Balestier,  who  holds  it  in 
trust  for  her  six  children. 

The  old  family  estate  of  the  Balestiers  (Beech- 
wood)  was  in  Brattleboro,  Vt.,  and  here,  in  the 
home  of  her  grandparents,  much  of  Mrs.  Rudyard 
Kipling's  girlhood  was  passed.  "  A  visit  with  her 
husband  to  these  scenes  of  her  childhood  resulted  in 
the  selection  of  the  site  for  their  home  among  the 
broad    Balestier  acres." 

9.  Residence  in  the  United  States.  —  From 
August,  1 89 2,  to  September,  1896,  Mr.  Kipling  made 
his  home  in  Brattleboro.  The  young  couple's  first 
attempt  at  housekeeping  was  in  the  Bliss  cottage, 
near  the  mansion  of  the  Balestiers.  Here  they  lived 
while  their  new  house  was  building.  The  cottage 
is  "  a  neat  little  white-clapboard,  story-and-a-half 
fabric,  which  the  novelist  at  first  thought  'just  large 
enough  for  two,'  but  which  soon  had  a  third  occu- 
pant in  the  person  of  an  infant  daughter."  It  was  in 
this  hillside  cottage  that  some  of  the  poems  of  the 
Seven  Seas  were  written,  that  Many  Inventions  was 
completed,  and   the  "Jungle   Book  stories  were  begun. 


24  A   Kipling   Primer 

But  popular  interest  centres  chiefly  about  the 
Naulahka,  Mr.  Kipling's  later  house,  and  the  only 
one  he  ever  built  for  himself.  It  is  "  a  long,  low, 
two-storied  frame  bungalow  of  but  a  single  room  in 
depth,  whose  dun  hues  blend  and  harmonize  with 
those  of  the  hillside."1  A  Brattleboro  visitor  writes, 
"  I  went  through  the  partly  constructed  Naulahka 
and  heard  the  owner  describe  its  theory.  He  called 
it  a  ship,  with  the  propeller,  that  is,  the  material 
provision  of  the  furnace  and  kitchen,  at  the  stern, 
and  his  own  study,  opening  upon  the  roomy  piazza 
looking  to  the  south  and  east,  at  the  bow."  2 

It  was  in  his  capacious  study  at  the  Naulahka 
that  many  of  Mr.  Kipling's  finest  poems  and  short 
stories  were  written,  as  well  as  the  whole  of  the 
Gloucester  fishing-tale  ■ —  "  Captains  Courageous." 

io.  England  and  South  Africa. — On  leav- 
ing Vermont,  Mr.  Kipling  returned  to  England  and 
took  a  house  for  a  short  time  at  Torquay.  Early  in 
1898  the  poet  with  his  family  made  a  tour  to  Cape 
Town,  South  Africa,  where  his  greeting  from  the 
English  population  was  exceedingly  warm.  He  re- 
moved in  the  spring  of  this  year  to  his  present  home, 
Rottingdean,  Sussex,  a  village  near  Brighton.  His 
place  is  called  "  The  Elms,"  from  the  superb  trees 
surrounding  it.  Here  Mr.  Kipling  has  led  a  quiet, 
retired   life,   keeping    in   good   form   for    his   literary 

1  Wolfe's  Literary  Haunts  and  Homes. 

2  The  Rev.  C.  O.  Day,  in  Congregationalism 


Biographical   Sketch  25 

labor  by  a  three-hours'  morning  ride  and  a  walk  of 
five  or  six  miles  later  in  the  day.  His  evenings  are 
frequently  passed  at  the  village  inn,  where  he  smokes 
with  the  landlord  and  discusses  politics. 

The  autumn  of  1898  brought  Mr.  Kipling  an 
opportunity  for  observing  the  Royal  Navy  at  close 
range.  On  the  invitation  of  one  of  the  command- 
ing officers  he  enjoyed  a  cruise  with  the  Channel 
Squadron  around  the  coast  of  Ireland  ;  this  resulted 
in  the  series  of  brilliant  descriptive  letters  contributed 
to  the  London  Morning  Post  under  the  title  "  A 
Fleet  in  Being." 

11.  Visit  to  America  and  Illness.  —  In  the 
latter  part  of  January,  1899,  Mr.  Kipling  sailed  for 
America  with  his  family,  intending  to  make  a  short 
stay  in  New  York  and  Washington,  after  which  he 
purposed  to  visit  Mexico.  He  arrived  February  2, 
and  had  hardly  become  settled  in  New  York  before 
he  began  to  suffer  from  a  serious  cold  which  refused 
to  be  shaken  off.  On  the  20th  he  was  taken  sud- 
denly ill  with  an  inflammation  of  the  lungs  that 
developed  rapidly  into  "  double  "  pneumonia. 
Everything  was  done  for  the  poet  which  medical 
science  and  the  loving  care  of  his  wife  could  devise, 
but  he'  grew  worse,  and  for  a  number  of  days  was 
kept  alive  only  by  the  administration  of  oxygen. 
He  was,  most  of  the  time,  unconscious.  Dr.  Jane- 
way,  the  well-known  New  York  specialist,  and  Dr. 
Dunham    who    married    Miss    Josephine    Balestier, 


26  A   Kipling   Primer 

Mrs.  Kipling's  younger  sister,  had  charge  of  the 
case,  and  were  unwearying  in  their  attentions.  The 
sick  man's  apartments  were  at  the  Grenoble,  and 
the  hotel  corridors  were  crowded  with  anxious 
friends,  while  a  stream  of  telegrams  and  cable-dis- 
patches poured  in  upon  Mrs.  Kipling.  New  York 
and  Boston  dailies  devoted  their  leading  columns  to 
discussing  the  case,  and  the  London  papers  issued 
extras  for  every  bulletin.  Max  Eliot,  the  London 
correspondent,  wrote :  "  In  the  streets  the  only  cry 
of  the  newsboys  is,  '  Latest  reports  of  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling.' ''  The  German  Kaiser  sent  the  following  dis- 
patch to  the  author's  wife  : 

Berlin,  March  5. 
Mrs.   Rudyard  Kipling,  Hotel  Grenoble  : 

As  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  unrivalled  books  of  your 
husband,  I  am  most  anxious  for  news  about  his  health.  God 
grant  that  he  may  be  spared  to  you  and  to  all  who  are  thankful 
to  him  for  the  soul-stirring  way  in  which  he  has  sung  about  the 
deeds  of  our  great  common  race. 

WlLLIA*M,    I.     R. 

The  crisis  in  the  disease  was  passed  in  the  morn- 
ing of  March  first  ;  a  slight  gain  in  a  resolution  of 
the  lower  lobes  could  be  reported,  and  the  patient 
dropped   into  his   first   refreshing  sleep   for  days. 

12.  Death  of  Mr.  Kipling's  Daughter. — 
Meantime  Elsie  and  Josephine,  Mr.  Kipling's  little 
daughters,  had  fallen  ill  with  pneumonia.  Elsie, 
the  younger,  had  recovered,  but  on  March  6 
Josephine,    a    six-year-old,    and    the    eldest    of   Mr. 


Biographical   Sketch  27 

Kipling's  three  children,  died  at  the  home  of  a 
family  friend  whither  she  had  been  removed  early 
in  her  illness.  The  child's  death  was  carefully 
concealed  from  her  father  for  several  days,  and  all 
matters  connected  with  the  funeral  were,  in  accord- 
ance with  Mrs.  Kipling's  earnest  wish,  kept  entirely 
private.  The  doctors  finally  decided  to  break  the 
news,  since  the  worry  which  the  patient  exhibited 
about  the  little  one's  whereabouts  and  welfare  was 
deemed  to  be  more  dangerous  than  the  truth. 
"  Tears  stood  in  the  poet's  eyes,"  says  a  contem- 
porary account,  "  and  he  murmured,  half  to  himself, 
half  aloud :   <  Poor  little  Joe.'  " 

13.  Restoration  to  Health.  —  Despite  the 
sorrow  of  this  great  bereavement,  Mr.  Kipling 
suffered  no  relapse,  though  his  improvement  was 
very  slow.  By  the  second  of  April  he  was  out  of 
bed  and  well  on  the  road  to  recovery.  It  was  on  that 
day  that  he  gave  to  the  press  the  following  letter 
of  thanks: 

Hotel  Grenoble,   Easter  Day,  1899. 

Dear  Sir:  Will  you  allow  me  through  your  columns  to 
attempt  some  acknowledgment  of  the  wonderful  sympathy,  affec- 
tion, and  kindness  shown  towards  me  during  my  recent  illness, 
as  well  as  the  unfailing  courtesy  that  controlled  its  expression  ? 
1  am  not  strong  enough  to  answer  letters  in  detail,  so  I  must 
take  this  means  of  thanking,  as  humbly  as  sincerely,  the  count- 
less people  of  good  will  throughout  the  world  who  have  put 
me  under  a  debt  I  can  never  hope  to  repay. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Rudyard  Kipling. 


28  A   Kipling   Primer 

In  the  latter  part  of  June  Mr.  Kipling  and  his 
family   returned   to  their   English   home. 

14.  Personality.  —  In  appearance  Mr.  Kip- 
ling is  a  little  under  average  stature,  with  a  com- 
pact figure  and  a  slight  stoop.  Behind  the  spectacles, 
worn  to  correct  astigmatism,  gleam  a  pair  of  kind 
and  alert  eyes.  In  more  than  one  respect  Rudyard 
Kipling  the  child  was  the  father  of  Rudyard  Kipling 
the  man.  The  following  description  of  the  poet  as 
he  lookecf  in  the  early  summer  of  1879  was  con- 
tributed to  the  San  Francisco  Examiner  by  Mr. 
George  Arnold  Wilkie,  an   old   classmate: 

"  Picture  to  yourself  a  chunky,  open-faced  boy 
of  about  fourteen  years.  He  was  very  brown  from 
his  residence  in  India,  and  he  had  thick  black  hair, 
rather  inclined  to  be  curly.  His  jaw  was  strong, 
his  teeth  large  and  very  white.  He  had  a  rolling 
gait,  and  walked  with  his  fists  crammed  in  the 
pockets  of  his  coat.  He  was  a  fairly  good  tennis 
player,  and  I  know  he  used  to  grieve  at  his  near- 
sightedness, which  prevented  him  from  excelling  in 
the  sport.  As  a  boy  Kipling  was  notably  careless 
in  dress.  He  would  not  comb  and  brush  his  thick 
hair  carefully,  and  he  had  a  habit  of  going  with  his 
shoe  laces  untied.  He  loved  to  fish  all  by  himself, 
or,  at  any  rate,  with  only  one  companion,  and  he 
would  come  home  to  his  immaculate  mother  and 
sister  with  a  mass  of  dock  burrs  or  several  varieties 
of  nettles  clinging  to   his  clothes  in  a  dozen  places, 


Biographical   Sketch  29 

while  fish  scales  stuck  to  his  coat  and  trousers  like 
postage  stamps."  1 

Mr.  Robinson's  first  impression  of  the  poet  is 
worth  reprinting.  "  With  Kipling  himself  I  was 
disappointed  at  first.  At  the  time  of  which  I  am 
writing,  early  in  1886,  his  face  had  not  acquired 
the  character  of  manhood,  and  contrasted  somewhat 
unpleasantly  with  his  stoop  (acquired  through  much 
bending  over  an  office  table),  his  heavy  eyebrows, 
his  spectacles,  and  his  sallow  Anglo-Indian  com- 
plexion, while  his  jerky  speech  and  abrupt  move- 
ments added  to  the  unfavorable  impression.  But 
his  conversation  was  brilliant,  and  his  sterling 
character  gleamed  through  the  humorous  light 
which  shone  behind  his  spectacles,  and  in  ten 
minutes  he  fell  into  his  natural  place  as  the  most 
striking  member  of  a  remarkably  clever  and  charm- 
ing family.';  A  reporter  for  the  London  World 
described  Mr.  Kipling  in  1890  as  "  a  short,  but 
broadly-figured  man,  dark,  with  blue  eyes  and  a 
resolute  jaw,  still  quite  young,  —  he  is  not  yet 
twenty-five,  —  but  with  a  face  on  which  time  and 
incident  have  prematurely  traced  many  tell-tale 
marks."  A  more  recent  scribe  has  this  :  u  I  hap- 
pened to  dine  at  the  same  table  with  him  at  the 
hotel,  and  though  I  recognized  him  from  portraits 
which  I   had   seen,  I  might   have  done  so   from   the 

1  Condensed  from  an  abstract  of  the  article  in  Current  Litera- 
ture for  April,  1899, 


30  A   Kipling   Primer 

constant  play  of  comment  from  him  as  his  eye  fell 
on  every  little  object  in  the  room  with  the  liveliest 
curiosity." 

Mr.  Kipling  is  a  fair  draughtsman,  a  clever  ama- 
teur actor,  a  remarkable  conversationist,  a  gracious 
host,  —  though  of  freezing  manners  toward  the  im- 
pertinent and  curious,  —  and  a  royal  entertainer  of 
children.  Of  children  he  has  said  that  he  who  can 
reach  the  child's  heart  can  reach  the  world's  heart. 
In  athletics  and  out-of-door  games  he  has  the  keen- 
est interest,  though  he  plays  more  like  an  enthusias- 
tic amateur  than  a  professional  sportsman.  During 
the  winter  —  at  any  rate  when  in  Vermont  —  he 
coasts,  snow-shoes,  "skis,"  plays  golf  upon  the 
crust,  and  shovels  out  the  paths  and  walks ;  in  sum- 
mer he  wheels,  tramps,  cultivates  a  garden,  or 
fishes.  More  deservedly  than  to  almost  any  living 
author  does  the  hackneyed  phrase  "  an  all-round 
man  "  apply  to  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling. 

15.  Portraits.  —  Among  the  familiar  portraits 
of  Mr.  Kipling  may  be  named  (1)  The  Bourne 
and  Shepherd  (Simla)  photograph,  taken  when  the 
author  was  about  twenty  years  of  age ;  (2)  the  El- 
liott and  Fry  (London)  photograph,  perhaps  the 
most  widely  known;  (3)  the  painting  by  the  Hon. 
John  Collier,  exhibited  in  the  Royal  Academy, 
1 89 1  ;  (4)  the  celebrated  colored  woodcut  litho- 
graph made  by  Mr.  William  Nicholson  for  the  New 
Review,  and  published   by   Heinemann  in   England, 


Biographical   Sketch  3 1 

and  R.  H.  Russell  in  New  York  (standing  posture); 
(5)  the  drawing  by  the  Marchioness  of  Granby 
(profile,  without  glasses)  ;  (6)  the  etching  by 
William  Strang  from  life  (profile,  arms  folded)  ;  (7 
and  8)  the  portrait  frontispieces  to  The  Courting  of 
Dinah  Shadd,  Harper's,  and  to  the  Outward  Bound 
edition  of  works,  Scribner's. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

mr.   kipling's  writings 
I 

i.  The  Star  in  the  East. —  Mr.  Kipling's 
advent  into  the  world  of  letters  occurred  at  a  very 
fortunate  moment.  Both  critics  and  public  were 
weary  of  the  burrowing  analysis  which  had  come  to 
supplant  a  healthy  love  of  incident  and  a  regard  for 
plot.  Microscopic  dissection  of  motives  and  the 
photography  of  hard-featured  men  and  women  formed 
the  staple  of  contemporary  fiction.  Combined  with 
this  uncompromising  realism  was  an  excessive  re- 
finement of  language,  evasive  and  self-conscious.  It 
was  at  this  juncture  that  Mr.  Kipling  presented  the 
English  people  with  his  brusque,  unhackneyed  stories 
of  "  a  cleaner,  greener  land,"  and  found  an  audience 
eager  to  welcome  him. 

2.  The  Zenith  of  Fame.  —  Fifteen  years  ago 
Rudyard  Kipling's  name  was  unknown  in  India ,  ten 
years  ago  it  was  unknown  in  England.  To-day 
Mr.  Kipling's  fame  is  international,  William  Dean 
Howells  has  said  in  a  recent  interview  :  "lam  hon- 
estly of  the  opinion  that  Kipling  is  the  most  famous 
man  in  the  world   to-day.     ...    In   fact  I  think  it 

(3-) 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  33 

fair  to  say  that  Kipling's  reputation  is  greater  than 
that  of  any  English-speaking  poet  who  ever  lived. " 
How  can  this  most  meteor-like  of  literary  reputa- 
tions be  accounted  for  ? 

3.    Can  We  Account   for    Kipling's  Vogue  ? 
—  Mr.   Kipling's    popularity   may  be    attributed   to 
the    romantic   conception    of  a  "young__  Lochinvar 
of  fiction,  who  came  out  of  the   East,  came  unan- 
nounced, and  came  all  alone."      It  may  be  attributed 
to   his  contemporaneousness  —  his  vital   interest   in 
what  the  world   is  Talking  about,  whether  it  be  the 
Queen's    Jubilee,   America's   policy    in    the    Philip- 
pines, or  the  Czar's  Proclamation.      We   may  say  it 
is  due  to  his  celebration  of  machinery,  and  of  nine- 
teenth  century  exploration  and  enterprise,  or  to  his 
flattery  of  British  national  pride.      But  such  answers 
are   superficial.       Other   versifiers    and    tale-writers 
have  struck  the  same  notes  ;   our  newspapers  are  full 
of  timely  poems  which  are  either  left  unread,  or  read 
once  and  forgotten.      Other  writers,  too,  have  made 
entrances   on   the  literary  stage  which  have  been  al- 
most as  dramatic.      Wide-spread   popularity  may  be 
won  by  many  qualities  :   world-wide  fame  has  never 
yet  been,  and  never  will  be,  won  except  by  a  union 
of  qualities  deserving  to  be  called  great.     What  gives 
Mr.  Kipling's  work  the  character  of  greatness  ? 

4.  Why  Kipling  may  be  Called  Great.  — 
Mr.  Kipling's  work  may  properly  be  called  great  be- 
cause he   has   so   much    to  say,  and   knows  so  well 


34  A   Kipling   Primer 

how  to  say  it.      He   combines  and  coordinates  mes- 
sage  and   style. 

This  combination  may  at  first  thought  seem  com- 
mon enough.  A  second  thought  convinces  one  of 
the  contrary.  Who  remembers  nine-tenths  of  cur- 
rent magazine  verse  ?  With  all  their  gift  for  say- 
ing things,  most  magazine  poets  have  nothing  to 
say.  At  any  event,  they  have  nothing  new  to  say. 
They  give  us  graceful  prettiness  and  millinery,  but 
offer  little  to  our  intellects,  and  nothing  to  our  im- 
mortal souls.  On  the  other  hand,  many  earnest 
men  have  something  to  tell  us,  but  are  inarticulate 
from  lack  of  training,  or  at  best  are  stammering, 
hoarse-voiced,  and  full  of  awkward  gestures.  Here 
at  last  comes  a  man  who,  it  would  seem,  has  been 
everywhere,  observed  everything,  arrived  at  the 
meaning  of  his  discoveries,  and  knows  also  how  to 
make  us  perceive  with  our  own  eves  what  he  has 
viewed  with  his  —  a  man,  in  a  word,  whq  has  both 
matter  and  manner. 

5.  Message  and  Style  Analyzed.  —  Mr.  Kip- 
ling's body  of  thought  is  of  the  highest  importance, 
because  it  combines  truth,  human  interest,  and  va- 
riety ;  his  style  is  of  the  highest  value,  because  it 
combines  force  with  precision. 

6.  Message  :  Truth.  —  No  work  of  literature 
can  be  of  lasting  importance  if  its  fundamental  con- 
ception is  based  upon  an  untruth.  Many  of  Mr. 
Ruskin's  charmingly  written  papers  fall  short  of  the 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  35 

highest  importance  because  based  on  false  proposi- 
tions. This  may  be  said  also  of  some  of  Carlyle's 
later  pamphlets,  of  certain  of  Mr.  Arnold's  theolog- 
ical essays,  of  not  a  few  of  Mr.  Swinburne's  poems, 
and  of  such  books  as  £)ueen  Mab,  and  James 
Thomson's  City  of  Dreadful  Night.  No  amount  of 
brilliant  expression  can  compensate  for.  radically 
false  views  of  human  nature  and  of  society.      Now 

/it  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Kipling's  work  as  a  whole 
that  while  the  facts  he  selects  are  often  novel  or 
exceptional,  they  are  based  on  truths  of  human 
nature  as  old  as  Job  or  Homer.  Vice  never  tri- 
umphs permanently  over  virtue,  and  it  bears  its 
proper  punishment.  True,  Mr.  Kipling  loves  to 
show  us  that  the  sinner  has  something  of  the  saint 
about   him,  and  the  saint   is   not   all   saint ;   but   he 

y  never  confuses  moral  values.      In  politics  he  guards 

against   laisser-faire  on  the  one    hand,    tyranny    and 

/toryism  on  the  other.      Mr.  Kipling   has  that  sober 

accuracy  of  vision  that   apprehends   things   in   their 

relations. 

7.  Message  :  Human  Interest.  —  The  value 
of  a  story-teller's  work  depends  largely  on  the 
amount   and  quality  of  the   human   life   he  can  de- 

/  pict.  Mr.  Kipling's  work  deserves  to  be  taken 
seriously,  because,  in  the  first  place,  it  gives  us  so 
much  of  life ;  because,  in  the  second  place,  it  gives 
us  so  much  of  the  noble,  invigorating  side  of  life. 
While  realistic   in   method,   it   is   ideal   in   aim. 


36  A   Kipling   Primer 

Our  author's  heroes 
"  Are  neither  children  nor  gods,  but  men  in  a  world  of  men."1 

The  delight  in  mere   physical   struggle,  the   love  of 
home  and  equal  love  of  roving  adventure,  the  friend- 
ship  of   man   for    man,  the   remorse  which   follows 
wasted  opportunities,  jealousy,  hatred,  and  revenge 
—  where  are  these   primary  qualities  of  our  nature 
given  more  powerful  expression  ?      The  words   Mr. 
Kipling  once   applied   to   Wressley    apply   quite    as 
truly   to   himself:   "His  heart  and  soul  were  at  the 
end  of  his  pen,  and  they  got  into  the  ink.      He  was 
dowered  with   sympathy,  insight,  humor,  and   style 
for  two  hundred  and  thirty  days  and  nights ;   and  his 
book  was  a  Book.      He  had   his  vast  special  knowl- 
edge with  him,  so  to  speak  ;  but  the  spirit,  the  woven- 
in   human   touch,  the  poetry  and   the  power  of  the 
output,  were  beyond  all  special  knowledge."  2     Mr. 
Kipling's  work  is  a  cross-section  through  nineteenth- 
century  society  from  Supi-yaw-lat   to  the  Widow  of 
Windsor,  from  Gunga  Din  to  the  Viceroy.      He  is 
interested   in   one  thing  and   one  alone.      It   is   not 
nature,   theology,    life   even — but   lives.      Not   hu- 
manity,   but    Dick,  Tom,  and    Harry  ;    not   human 
nature,  but   your   nature ;    not   the   brotherhood   of 
man,  but    Gunga    Din,   Disco   Troop,   McAndrew, 
his  brothers.      The   subject   that   cannot    be   related 


1  "  A  Song  of  the  English." 

2  Wressley  of  the  Foreign  Office. 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  37 

to  the  real  experience  of  a  real   man   has  no  charm 
for  him. 

But  the  human  nature  to  which  Mr.  Kipling  in- 
troduces us  is  not  only  vigorous  and  varied  :  it  is 
wholesome.1  No  side  of  human  nature  is  without 
interest  for  him  ;  but  the  most  fascinating  side  is 
that  which  struggles  for  the  attainment  of  ideal 
ends.  We  drop  his  books  with  more  faith  rather 
than  less  in  men  and  women.  Bobby  Wicks  is  far 
removed  from  the  saint,  but  he  dies  for  a  comrade 
and  makes  no  fuss  about  it.  Hummil,  too,  has  the 
minor  vices  of  his  class,  but  he  sacrifices  his  life 
for  another.  Jakin  and  Lew  are  children  of  the 
gutter,  but  they  die  drumming  and  fifing  defiantly 
far  in  advance  of  the  cowardly  regiment.  To  say 
that  the  author's  sympathies  are  not  universal  is 
only  to  say  that  they  are  healthy.  He  detests  _the 
prig,  and  hates  above  all  the  religious  prig.  The 
Pharisee,  whether  called  by  the  name  of  Mrs.  Jen- 
nett,  or  Antirosa,  or  Riley  the  bank  accountant,  or 
Mrs.  ScrifFshaw,  he  has  no  good  word  for.  But. 
towards  the  imperfect  men   and  women  who  do  the 

1 A  few  of  the  early  stories  and  ballads  hardly  deserve  this 
praise.  Yet  the  savagery  of  Kipling's  satiric  mood  was  wakened 
only  by  what  he  felt  to,be  cant,  hypocrisy,  or  cowardice.  If  he 
saw  cant,  hypocrisy,  and  cowardice-  where  they  do  not  exist,  the 
error  lay  in  his  defective  judgment  and  undeveloped  faculty  of 
sympathy,  not  in  heart  and  will.  Mr.  Kipling's  pessimism,  more- 
over, was  far  from  indicating  moral  apathy.  Had  he  cared  noth- 
ing for  ethics,  had  he  possessed  no  private  standard  of  conduct, 
he  would  have  been  either  indifferent  to  wrong  or  oblivious  to  it. 


38  A   Kipling   Primer 

day's  work  with  brave  patience  and  a  bold   heart  — 
toward 

"  Such  as  praise  our  God  for  that  they  served  His  world,"" 
Mr.   Kipling's   interest   and    sympathy   are    undevi- 

•  xJ8.  Message  :  Variety.  —  The  value  of  litera- 
ture depends  in  part  on  its  range.  A  man  who  sees 
a  few  things  or  knows  a  single  place  is  obviously 
less  well-equipped  for  story-writing  than  a  man  who 
has  observed  very  widely.  This  is  not  because  one 
place  offers  less  valuable  material  than  another.  It 
is  partly  because  any  theme,  however  interesting, 
becomes  wearisome  if  harped  on  ;  it  is  also  because 
a  man  needs  to  see  a  good  many  things  before  he 
can  gauge  the  proper  proportions  of  any  one  thing. 
One  of  the  most  astonishing  merits  of  Mr.  Kip- 
ling is  his  range.  He  has  laid  the  scenes  of  his 
tales  in  India,  South  Africa,  the  United  States,  the 
Newfoundland  Banks,  the  East  End  of  London, 
English  country  villages,  mid-ocean,  and  the  islands 
of  the  sea.  He  has  written  children's  tales,  mystery 
tales,  soldier  stories,  beast  fables,  humorous  and 
sailor  yarns,  studies  in  native  Indian  life,  sporting 
tales,  and  society  dialogues.  He  writes  fluently  in 
every  dialect  under  heaven.  While  his  stories  of 
India  are  mainly  concerned  with  four  classes,  — 
British  soldiers,  fashionable  Anglo-Indian  society, 
children  of  British  officials,  and  natives,  —  his  later 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  39 

tales  include  London  bank-clerks,  Gloucester  fish- 
ermen, California  millionaires,  New  York  journal- 
ists, and  Devonshire  schoolboys.  When  he  essays 
verse  he  is  equally  resourceful.  Most  poets  can  be 
classed  by  their  little  fields,  as  poets  of  heroism,  of 
adventure,  of  the  sea,  of  the  army,  of  politics.  Mr. 
Kiptihg  is  the  poet  of  all  this  and  of  how  much 
beside!  In  The  Seven  Seas  he  writes  of  the  British 
empire,  of  the  English  soldier,  of  the  American 
spirit,  of  the  three-volume  novel,  of  the  sea  fight 
between  the  sealing  boats,  of  the  cave-dwellers,  of 
the  true  romance.  Mr.  James  Whitcomb  Riley 
'writes  of  Kipling  :  "  He  has  the  greatest  curiosity 
of  any  man  I  ever  knew ;  everything  interests  him." 
He  knows  the  name  of  every  rope  on  the  New- 
foundland fishing  schooner,  and  writes  with  equal 
mastery  of  a  Greek  galley,  Chinese  pig-boat,  Bilbao 
tramp,  British  man-of-war,  and  Atlantic  liner. 
"  Mr.  Kipling's  accuracy  is  phenomenal,"  says  a 
Popular  Science  Monthly  writer  in  discussing  The 
Scientific  Spirit  in  Kipling's  Work.  Read  the 
'Jungle  Books,  and  see  how  intimate  is  his  knowledge 
of  zoology,  the  Story  of  Ung  and  In  the  Neolithic 
Age,  and  observe  his  familiar  acquaintance  with 
archeology.  In  ^uiquern  and  The  White  Seal  he 
shows  the  same  easy  mastery  of  Arctic  exploration, 
in  The  Flowers  of  botany,  in  The  English  Flag  of 
geography,  in  The  Children  of  the  Zodiac  of  the  con- 
stellations. 


4°  A   Kipling  Primer 

^  9.  Style:  Force.  —  The  word  beautiful  would 
never  come  to  mind  if  one  were  asked  to  character- 
ize the  work  of  Mr.  Kipling  in  a  single  epithet. 
What  we  first  notice  about  him  is  his  power.  He 
^means  something  and  means  it  hard.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  ignore  him;  his  demand  is  too  immediate 
and  persistent.  Read  where  you  will,  his  writings 
strike  you  "  with  the  weight  of  a  six-fold  blow." 
"  His  vitality  and  force  are  so  extraordinary  that 
they  sweep  the  goddess  of  Criticism  off  her  legs," 
said  a  eulogist  in  the  Saturday  Review.  Let  the 
reader  once  get  caught  in  the  dash  and  swing  of  The 
Seven  Seas  and  he  is  swept  along  irresistibly  until 
finis  at  the  book's  end  casts  him  ashore  again  half- 
drowned  but  happy.  When  a  man  can  bring  this 
about,  only  the  purist,  the  grammarian,  or  the  prig 
will  question  whether  he  is  a  poet.  We  recommend 
to  all  such  Mr.  Kipling's  "Conundrum  of  the 
Workshops  ": 

"  They  builded  a  tower  to  shiver  the  sky  and  wrench  the  stars 
apart, 
Till  the  devil  grunted  behind  the  bricks  :    <  It's  striking,  but 
is  it  art  ?  *  " 

Art  may  be  crude  or  coarse,  but  it  is  successful 
if  it  achieve  its  purpose.  If  the  artist's  product 
"  strikes  "  you,  art  of  some  sort  it  certainly  is.  The 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  wholly  inartistic 
things   is   this  :   They   do   not   strike   one   at   all. 

10.     Style:     Precision.  —  In    addition    to   force 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  41 

style  should  have  precision.  Macaulay  possesses 
force,  but  so  little  delicacy  that  he  constantly  under- 
states or  overstates  his  meaning.  He  chooses  pri- 
mary colors  and  has  no  subtlety  of  shading.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mr.  Pater  and  Mr.  James  cultivate  pre- 
cision of  phrase,  one  thinks,  at  the  expense  of 
energy.  What  makes  Mr.  Kipling's  use  of  lan- 
guage so  triumphantly  successful  is  the  fact  that  he 
combines  strength  and  exactness,  almost  never  sac- 
rificing one  to  the  other.  The  Spectator  has  said  of 
him  that  he  "  is  of  all  living  writers  the  most  care- 
ful and  conscientious  in  the  matter  of  form."  He 
knows  the  value  of  individual  words  as  a  mechanic 
knows  the  use  and  importance  of  different  tools, 
and  can  turn  with  perfect  ease  from  the  sledge- 
hammer to  the  awl  or  file.  In  his  powerful  and 
odd,  though  wholly  serious,  conception  of  the  Here- 
after, the  happy  artist  "  shall  splash  at  a  ten-league 
canvas  with  brushes  of  comet's  hair."  But  the 
splashes  are  not  daubs.  Kipling  hastens  to  add  that 
the  painter  "  shall  draw  the  thing  as  he  sees  it,  for 
the    God   of  Things  as   They   Are." l 

Such  a  coordination  of  vigor  and  nicety  is  very 
remarkable.  It  is  Byron  and  Mr.  Aldrich  in  part- 
nership. 

1  L'envoi  to  The  Seven  Seas. 


42  A   Kipling   Primer 


II 

ii.  Mr.  Kipling's  Three  Periods.  —  Mr. 
Kipling's  work  may  be  divided  for  convenience  into 
three  periods  :  Satirical  Treatment  of  Character ; 
Sympathetic  Treatment  of  Character ;  Spiritual 
Treatment   of  Character. 

12.  Satirical  Treatment  of  Character. — 
In  Mr.  Kipling's  early  writings  one  hears  the  sound 
of  scornful  laughter.  There  is  irony,  wit,  clever- 
ness in  plenty,  but  a  lack  of  the  charity  which 
"  suffereth   long  and   is   kind." 

The  first  book  which  deserves  consideration  is 
Departmental  Ditties,  a  collection  of  verses  mainly 
satirical  and  almost  wholly  concerned  with  Indian 
official  life.  It  is  impossible  for  outside  readers  to 
appreciate,  as  the  little  Anglo-Indian  world  of  the 
eighties  could,  all  the  allusions  to  Delilah,  Boanerges 
Blitzen,  Pagett,  M.P.,  and  Potiphar  Gubbins.  Yet 
these  queer  appellations  stood  for  the  names  of  men 
and  women  widely  known  in  the  circles  the  poet 
frequented,  and  the  sharp  personalities  struck  home. 
The  book  enjoyed  the  same  sort  of  success  that 
topical  songs  filled  with  local  "  gags  "  always  win 
at  vaudeville  theatres.  It  was  in  some  sense  a  sur- 
vival of  the  mood  which  led  the  schoolboy  Kipling 
to  lampoon  his  masters,  but  it  had  perhaps  a  more 
serious  intent.      The  occasional  pieces  are  certain  to 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  43 

be  forgotten,  since  their  appeal  is  to  passing,  not 
permanent,  sources  of  interest.  The  society  verse 
is  already  forgotten,  since  this  above  all  kinds  of 
poetry  demands  perfectly  polished  form  —  precisely 
the  point  where  the  youthful  Kipling  was  de- 
ficient. A  few  of  the  Ditties,  however,  deserve 
to  survive. 

One  of  them  is  "  The  Story  of  Uriah,"  an  Anglo- 
Indian  version  of  the  David  and  Bathsheba  narrative. 
It  is  unpleasant,  it  has  no  smoothness  or  charm,  but 
every  word  is  like  a  blow  of  the  fist. 

Another  poem  which  gives  earnest  of  Mr.  Kip- 
ling's maturer  style  is  "  The  Galley  Slave,"  an  alle- 
gorical description  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service.  It 
preaches  a  robust  gospel  from  first  line  to  last : 

"  Was  it  storm  ?  Our  fathers  faced  it,  and  a  wilder  never 
blew  5 

Earth  that  waited  for  the  wreckage  watched  the  galley  strug- 
gle through. ,1 

Perhaps  still  finer  is  the  jubilee  poem,  "  What 
the   People  Said  "  : 

"  By  the  well,  where  the  bullocks  go 
Silent  and  blind  and  slow." 

It  has  just  that  added  note  of  spirituality  which  is 
wanting  in  the  rest  of  the  book,  and  points  propheti- 
cally to  the  "  Recessional  "  of  a  decade  later. 

As  a  whole,  the  tone  of  these  Ditties  is  disagree- 
able. Their  attitude  toward  life  is  very  juvenile. 
Here  is  a  sample : 


44  A   Kipling   Primer 

"  Open  the  old  cigar-box  —  let  me  consider  anew  — 

Old    friends,    and  who   is   Maggie   that    I    should    abandon 


"  A  million  surplus  Maggies  are  willing  to  bear  the  yoke  : 
And    a    woman    is    only  a   woman,   but   a   good  cigar  is  a 
smoke.  ,'> 

No  plea  of  deliberate  humor  excuses  such  brutal 
cynicism. 

Another  representative  work  of  this  early  period 
is  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills.  Here  we  find  much 
the  same  merits  and  faults  as  in  Departmental  Ditties. 
The  tales  are  notable  for  force,  conciseness,  unity, 
and  wit.  They  have  a  spontaneousness  about  them 
which  some  of  Mr.  Kipling's  very  recent  stories 
lack.  They  were  not  written  to  propitiate  the  crit- 
ics, nor  to  win  money,  nor  to  satisfy  his  own  mature 
and  exacting  canons  of  taste.  They  were  dashed 
off  to  please  himself.  They  are  consequently 
marked  by  an  astounding  freshness  and  charm, 
and  even  the  poorest  of  them  has  the  quality  of 
being  readable.  What  they  lack  is  that  sympa- 
thetic insight  which  delves  beneath  surface  faults  of 
character  and  discovers  the  fountains  of  human  suf- 
fering. Many  of  them  are  marred  by  cynicism, 
nearly  all  of  them  by  cocksureness  —  the  jaunty  hat- 
on-one-side,  chip-on-shoulder  air  of  precocious 
youth.  The  best  of  the  stories  are  those  in  which  Mr. 
Kipling  drops  his  air  of  knowingness,  and  is  content 
to  stand  aside  and  let  his  story  tell  itself,  as  he  does 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  45 

in  that  masterpiece  of  humor  "  The  Taking  of 
Lungtungpen,"  and  that  masterpiece  of  pathos  — 
probably  the  finest  thing  in  the  book  — "  The 
Story  of  Muhammad  Din." 

In  Under  the  Deodars  Kipling's  effort  is  to  depict 
the  shallow  fashionable  society  of  Simla.  Here  his 
cynical  temper  finds  chance  for  complete  expression. 
It  is  not  the  fact  that  so  many  of  these  stories  turn 
on  the  motive  of  adultery  to  which  one  objects.  It 
is  the  fact  that  we  are  not  given  a  clear  perspective. 
Mr.  Barrie  defends  Kipling  for  "  choosing  the  dirty 
corner."  He  finds  fault,  however,  with  good 
reason,  because  "  the  blaze  of  light  is  always  on  the 
one  spot :   we  never  see  the  rest  of  the  room."1 

By  what  right  does  the  author  direct  the  rays  of 
his  lantern  on  unfaithful  husbands  and  intriguing 
wives  without  allowing  us  to  observe  the  thousands 
of  excellent  British  subjects  in  India  who  cultivate 
the  old-fashioned  virtues  ?  It  is  true  that  Mr.  Kip- 
ling writes  of  immorality  in  a  moral  way ;  he  never 
makes  it  seductive,  nor  fails  to  show  that  it  bears  its 
penalty.  He  misplaces  his  accent,  that  is  all.  Con- 
ceding him  a  perfect  right  to  "  draw  the  Thing  as  he 
sees  it,"  we  still  regret  that  u  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever 
things  are  of  good  report "  are  not,  in  these  earlv 
stories,  given   quite   a   fair  chance. 

The  satiric  spirit  is  hardly  less   prominent  in   the 

1  Contemporary  Review. 


46  A   Kipling   Primer 

Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  a  series  of  social  studies  with 
the  cynical  moral  that  a  soldier  married  is  a  soldier 
marred : 

"  Down  to  Gehenna  or  up  to  the  Throne 
He  travels  the  fastest  who  travels  alone."  ' 

Gadsby  himself  has  this  to  say  to  Captain  Mafflim : 
"  Jack,  be  very  sure  of  yourself  before  you  marry. 
I'm  an  ungrateful  ruffian  to  say  this,  but  marriage 
—  even  as  good  a  marriage  as  mine  has  been  — 
hampers  a  man's  work,  it  cripples  his  sword-arm, 
and  oh,  it  plays  Hell  with  his  notions  of  duty  !  " 
The  lack  of  genuine  chivalry  toward  women  has 
always  been  one  of  Mr.  Kipling's  faults,  but  it  has 
never  elsewhere  touched  the  depths  it  reaches  in 
these  Gadsby  dialogues.  Much  can  be  forgiven 
the  author  on  the  score  of  his  extreme  youth.  But 
can  that  excuse  be  stretched  to  cover  the  retention 
of  this  book  in  the  Outward  Bound  edition,  recently 
revised  by  the  author  ?  The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys  is 
as  superficial  and  vulgar  in  tone  as  it  is  brilliant  in 
composition,  and  can  add  nothing  to  the  author's 
fame. 

Another  representative  work  of  this  early  period 
is  The  Light  that  Failed,  Mr.  Kipling's  first  novel. 
It  has  powerful  passages,  but  lacks  tolerance  and 
sanity.  It  is  a  very  young  book.  Its  air  of  om- 
niscience becomes  tiresome;  its  violence  is  never 
felt,  except  in  the  superb  battle  passages,  to  be 
1  L'envoi  to  Story  of  the  Gadsbys. 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  47 

exactly  vigor.  As  a  story  it  is  disheartening.  In 
reviewing  it  the  Quarterly  reminded  Mr.  Kipling  of 
a  forgotten  truth  :  "  The  finest  art  is  futt  of  light  and 
hope."  It  subordinates  "  other  qualities,  however 
brilliant,  to  a  belief  in  the  best  things  about  God  and 
man."  Dick  Heldar's  blindness  seems,  in  view  of  his 
character,  "  more  like  retribution  than  like  Neme- 
sis." Pity  him  as  much  as  we  may,  we  would  have 
pitied  him  more  if  his  spirit  from  the  first  had  been 
less  magisterial  and  selfish,  if  he  had  not  been  so 
resentful  of  an  affront  to  his  pride  and  so  con- 
temptuous of  the  common  herd  who  would  have 
none  of  art.  Dick  had  yet  to  learn,  like  Mr.  Kip- 
ling himself,  that  even  shop-keepers  and  Sunday- 
school  superintendents  should  possess  an  interest  for 
a  broadly  receptive  mind ;  that  very  lovable  people 
have  been  known  to  attend  dissenting  chapels  and 
to  prefer  religious  tracts  to  Shakespeare's  plays. 
When  Dick  Heldar  gains  his  first  sight  of  London 
after  returning  from  the  Soudan  he  addresses  the 
following  speech  to  a  row  of  highly  respectable 
houses:  utOh,  you  rabbit-hutches!  Do  you  know 
what  you've  got  to  do  later  on  ?  You  have  to 
supply  me  with  men-servants  and  maid-servants,' 
—  here  he  smacked  his  lips,  —  'and  the  peculiar 
treasure  of  kings.  Meantime  I'll  get  clothes  and 
boots,  and  presently  I  will  return  and  trample  on 
you.' '  Surely  that  is  not  the  mental  temper  which 
makes  either  for  Christianity  or  for  good  art. 


48  A   Kipling   Primer 

The  work  of  Mr.  Kipling's  first  period,  then,  is 
marked  by  dash,  wit,  and  inexhaustible  cleverness, 
but  is  marrediby  the  characteristic  faults  of  youth  : 
lack  of  sympathy  and  undeveloped  sense  of  propor- 
tion. 

13.  Sympathetic  Treatment  of  Character. 
—  But  the  author  had  already  begun  to  promise 
better  things.  As  interpretations  of  the  queer 
workings  of  the  Oriental  mind  and  still  queerer 
workings  of  the  all  but  impenetrable  native  con- 
science, some  of  the  stories  in  In  Black  and  White 
are  unparalleled.  In  certain  tales  of  Soldiers  Three, 
and  in  at  least  one  of  the  child  stories,  he  touched 
almost  the  highest  level  he  has  reached.  The  reason 
is  obvious.  He  was  writing  of  the  classes  of  people 
with  whom  he  was  in  complete  rapport,  and  he  was 
attempting  to  vindicate  no  favorite  theory  of  art  or 
society.  Human  nature  was  treated  in  a  broader 
spirit  which  made  its  appeal  less  and  less  to  the 
passing  interest  evoked  by  clever  description  of  class 
manners  and  social  fashions  and  more  to  the  per- 
manent interest  awakened  by  portrayal  of  primitive 
and  lasting  emotions. 

A  very  fortunate  field  for  the  exercise  of  his 
talents  was  offered  by  the  ballads  of  1892.  Mr. 
Kipling  no  longer  gave  us  society  as  he  had  found 
it,  or  sin  as  he  had  unearthed  it,  or  art  as  he  chose 
to  preach  it ;  he  set  Tommy  Atkins  to  singing  and 
let  him  relate  his  own  story  to  music.      The  result 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  49 

is  perhaps  the  faithfullest  picture  of  the  common 
soldier  we  have  in  modern  literature.  Of  the  gal- 
lant officer-on-leave,  of  the  picturesque  veteran,  or 
of  a  sort  of  sentimentalized  man-in-the-ranks,  con- 
ceived either  as  lover  or  as  simon-pure  hero,  fiction 
/  gives  us  many  examples.  But  the  "  snoring  Bar- 
rack-room," diolera  scourge,  canteen,  commissariat 
"  camuels,"  battery  mules,  sweating  carriers,  "  'arf- 
made  recruities "  —  these  seem  to  have  been  re- 
served for  Rudyard  Kipling.  The  poet  never 
ventriloquizes.  We  are  not  asked  to  believe  that  a 
young  journalist  masquerading  in  a  red  coat  is  Mr. 
Atkins.  Never  once  does  the  singer  of  the  Bar- 
rack-room stand  off  and  view  his  soldier-man  with 
cynical  or  even  with  merely  curious  while  friendly 
interest  ;  he  sleeps  under  the  same  blanket,  he 
smokes  the  same  tobacco,  he  shares  the  same 
rations,  he  gets  near  enough  to  his  comrade's  heart 
to  discover  the  rude  chivalry  which  redeems  his 
undisguised  animalism.  The  common  man  of  the 
British  army  is  at  last  completely  realized. 

In  the  prose  tales  of  Mr.  Kipling's  second  period 
one  sees  not  only  surer  mastery  of  form  and  the 
sloughing  off  of  mannerisms  ;  even  more  apparent 
is  the  growth  in  sympathy.  There  is  not  a  page  in 
the  Plain  Tales,  unless  we  except  "The  Story  of  Mu- 
hammad Din,"  that  reveals  anything  approaching  the 
tenderness  of  the  tale  entitled  "  Without  Benefit  of 
Clergy."      "  Beyond  the  Pale  "  has,  to  be  sure,  a  plot 


50  A   Kipling   Primer 

which  presents  similarities,  yet  that  pitiful  little  narra- 
tive is,  after  all,  a  study  from  the  outside  ;  it  fails  to 
seize  the  heartstrings  like  Ameera's  story.  It  is  plain 
enough  that  the  situation  could  never  have  been 
entered  into  with  the  same  absorption  by  the 
author.  "  Love-o'-Women,"  too,  in  Many  Inventions, 
grips  the  sympathies  as  none  of  the  early  tales  do. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  several  stories  of  this 
middle  period.  They  are  not  the  notes  of  a  jour- 
nalist-observer ;  they  are  a  serious  man's  record  of 
the  points  of  view  and  mental  sufferings  of  other 
minds.  The  composition  of  "  The  Destroyer  of 
Traffic,"  for  example,  is  possible  only  to  a  writer  of 
no  little  dramatic  sympathy  and  capacity  for  self- 
detachment.  All  the  jauntiness  of  the  early  writ- 
ings has  now  vanished.  The  tone  is  manly, 
wholesome,  optimistic.  The  humor  is  kinder,  the 
pathos  less  strained  ;  the  wise  humility  of  maturity 
has   succeeded  the   flippancy   of  youth. 

14.  Spiritual  Treatment  of  Character. — 
If  the  temper  of  Mr.  Kipling's  first  period  was 
satiric  and  that  of  his  second  period  dramatic,  that 
of  his  third  may  be  called  philosophic.  It  is  a 
remarkable  evolution.  While  Mr.  Kipling  is  a 
charming  story-teller  still  (he  is  nothing  if  not  artist), 
the  reader  is  impressed  by  a  growing  undercurrent 
of  allegory  and  symbolism.  In  the  Jungle  Tales 
the  author  sets  man  over  against  the  background  of 
nature,  shows  us  the  inferiority  of  the  overcivilized 


Mr.    Kipling's  Writings  51 

and  house-bred  man  to  the  natural  man,  and  of 
human  society,  in  more  than  one  particular,  to 
brute  society.  Is  not  the  "  Law  of  the  Jungle " 
"  the  reproof  of  human  codes  in  its  comprehensive 
justice  "  ?  "  Captains  Courageous"  too,  is  one  long 
parable  on  the  relation  of  character  to  environment. 
The  Day's  Work  is  an  elaborate  piece  of  symbolism, 
standing  for  the  tremendous  conflict  of  man  with 
the  forces  of  nature  and  of  circumstance.  The 
struggle  may  be  against  the  wrath  of  a  flood,  as  in 
"  The  Bridge-Builders,"  or  against  a  relentless  fam- 
ine, as  in  "  William  the  Conqueror."  The  struggle 
may  be  that  of  the  social  unit  to  adjust  itself  to  the 
needs  of  the  social  organization,  as  in  the  allegory 
called  "  The  Ship  that  Found  Herself,"  —  every- 
where, however,  it  is  conflict  of  will  with  will  or  of 
force  with  force.  "  I  like  men  who  do  things,"  con- 
fesses William  the  Conqueror.  All  the  men  in  The 
Day's  Work  do  things,  all  the  horses  and  locomotives 
and  marine  engines  do  things.  Mr.  Kipling's  phi- 
losophy of  life  is  summed  up  in  this  sentence  from 
"  The  Bridge-Builders  "  :  "  The  order  in  all  cases  was 
to  stand  by  the  day's  work  and  wait  instructions." 
The  duty  of  struggle,  the  duty  of  obedience  — 
these  are  the  two  articles  in  this  strenuous  creed. 
"  It's  all  in  the  day's  work,"  says  Scott  in  "  William 
the  Conqueror."  "  It's  all  in  the  day's  run,"  says 
.ooy  in  the  locomotive  story.  "  Play  the  game  — 
don't  talk,"  whickers  the  «  Maltese  Cat."   The  Jungle 


52  A   Kipling   Primer 

Books  stand  for  the  struggle  for  supremacy  between 
natural  and  artificial  forces.  "  Captains  Courageous" 
teaches  the  necessity  of  learning  to  take  orders. 
This,  too,  is  the  lesson  McAndrew  obtains  from 
his   engines  — 

"  Law,  Orrder,  Duty  an'  Restraint,  Obedience, 
Discipline."  Discipline,  however,  is  only  to  the 
end  of  more  effective  activity.  We  obey  orders 
that  we  may  catch  more  cod  on  the  Banks  or  make 
a  quicker  run  to  port. 

Most  of  the  poetry  is  of  the  same  timbre.  If 
the  prose  taken  together  is  an  epic  which  sings  the 
eternal  struggle  of  man  to  survive  against  the  powers 
which  war  against  his  body  and  soul,  such  poems  as 
"  The  Song  of  the  English  "  and  mosfof  the  others  in 
varying  degree  sing  the  struggle  for  race-survival 
between  the  conquering  Saxons  and  their  rivals.  It 
may  be  said  that  one  gets  in  certain  recent  writings 
the  note  of  reverence  and  humility  — 

*  *  Still  stands  Thine  ancient  sacrifice, 
An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart.1 ' 

Such  submission,  however,  is  not  opposed  to  the 
o-ospel  of  endeavor;  it  is  a  part  of  it.  It  is  Crom- 
well's sort  of  submission  —  the  stooping  of  the  sol- 
dier to  buckle  on  his  armor.  In  the  light  of  "  The 
Truce  of  the  Bear  "  and  "  The  White  Man's  Bur- 
den," which  followed  the  "  Recessional  "  and  to 
some  degree  interpreted  it,  we  cannot  doubt  that  while 
«*  The  captains  and  the  kings  depart/ ' 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  53 

they  don't  depart  to  their  homes  and  become  trades- 
people. Instead  of  laying  down  their  weapons  they 
sleep  upon  them.  One  of  Mr.  Kipling's  sturdy 
heroes  confesses,  "  The  Lord  abideth  back  of  me  to 
guide  my  fighting-arm."  This  is  the  sort  of  deity 
Mr.  Kipling  invokes.  Indeed,:  his  conception  of 
God  is  more  Hebraic  than  Christian;  God  is  rep- 
resented in  his  writings  as  either  the  "  Lord  God  of 
Battles,"  or  the  "  Master  of  all  Good  Workmen." 
The  obedience  to  God  which  Kipling  enjoins  is  the 
sort  of  obedience  which  he  recommends  for  Harvey 
Cheyne  in  "  Captains  Courageous  "  —  that  obedience 
which  enables  the  boy  by  submitting  himself  to 
the  commands  of  the  skipper  to  work  to  better  re- 
sult himself.  It  is  significant  that  the  term  Mr. 
Kipling  selects  for  the  Deity  in  his  remarkable  invo- 
cation which  concludes  Life's  Handicap  is  "  Great 
Overseer."  In  his  poem  addressed  to  Wolcott  Bal- 
estier  he  makes  reference  to  "  Our  wise  Lord  God, 
master  of  every  trade."  Not  only  does  Mr.  Kip- 
ling transfer  his  conception  of  effort  to  the  future 
life  where  we  shall  labor  "  each  for  the  joy  of  the 
working,"  but  he  makes  faithful  work  on  earth  the 
price  of  admission  both  to  heaven  and  Hades. 
Gunga  Din,  cut  off  in  mid-career,  dies  in  the  per- 
formance of  duty.  He  will  be  permitted  to  finish 
his  task  in  "  the  place  where  'e  is  gone."  It  is  not 
Gunga  Din,  but  the  milk  and  water  Tomlinson  who 
is    refused    admission    in   turn    to    heaven   and   hell 


54  A   Kipling   Primer 

because  unable  to  answer  the  test,  "  What  ha'   ye 
done  ?  " 

But  the  poet  has  for  his  end  neither  the  satisfac- 
tion of  lighting  —  the  glow  of  the  muscles  —  nor 
the  accomplishment  of  vulgar  success.  McAndrew, 
the  Scotch  engineer,  who  takes  comfort  in  reflect- 
ing, "  I  am  o'  service  to  my  kind.  Ye  wadna' 
blame  the  thought,"  echoes  Mr.  Kipling's  own 
creed.  Even  in  the  earliest  of  his  long  stories  he 
writes,  "  If  we  make  light  of  our  work,  by  using  it 
for  our  own  ends,  our  work  will  make  light  of  us." 
And  again,  "  You're  on  the  wrong  road  to  success. 
It  isn't  got  at  by  sacrificing  other  people, —  I've 
had  that  much  knocked  into  me ;  you  must  sacri- 
fice yourself,  and  live  under  orders."  The  closing 
lines  of  one  of  his  most  devout  poems  breathe  the 
same  spirit : 

"  One  stone  the  more  swings  to  her  place 
In  that  dread  Temple  of  Thy    Worth  $ 

It  is  enough  that  through  Thy  grace 
I  saw  naught  common  on  Thy  earth. 

"  Take  not  that  vision  from  my  ken  ; 

Oh,  whatsoe'er  may  spoil  or  speed, 
Help  me  to  need  no  aid  from  men 

That  I  may  help  such  men  as  need."  * 

To  such  a  vision,  what  is  commonly  called  fail- 
ure seems  unimportant.      Is   not   Mr.   Kipling  him- 

1  L'envoi  to  Life's  Handicap. 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  55 

self  speaking  behind  the  mask  of  the  talking 
banjo  : 

"  I  have  known  Defeat,  and  mocked  it  as  we  ran  "  ? 

This  is  the  sort  of  faith  to  which  anything  less  than 
success  appears  inconceivable. 

But  valiant  and  uncompromising  as  it  is,  this 
creed  lacks  the  one  thing  essential  to  completeness. 
In  making  duty,  not  love,  the  motive  power  to  ac- 
tion, especially  when  that  action  is  viewed  in  the 
light  of  service  to  others,  Mr.  Kipling  ignores  the 
highest  sanction  for  the  day's  work.  In  this  he  is 
the  antithesis  of  Robert  Browning  and  of  St.  John, 
and  the  very  brother-in-blood  of  Mr.  Thomas  Car- 
lyle.  Like  the  sage  of  Chelsea,  he  has  failed  to 
say  the  last  word  on   his  theme. 

For  love  —  even  the  love  that  is  mixed  with 
earth  —  Mr.  Kipling  finds  little  place  in  his  gospel. 
Thomas  Atkins  says  of  the  London  "  'ousemaids  " 
that  "  they  talks  a  lot  o'  lovin',  but  wot  do  they 
understand  ?  "  Few  of  Kipling's  characters  under- 
stand much,  though  many  lovers  are  included  in 
his  repertory.  Love,  in  our  author's  thought,  is  a 
very  delightful  incident  of  the  day's  work,  but  the 
building  of  bridges  and  engines  and  empires  min- 
isters, after  all,  rather  more  to  the  growth  of  char- 
acter and  of  civilization.  Not  many  midday  hours 
must  be  devoted  to  wooing,  though  it  is  an  admir- 
able   amusement    for    evenings    when    one    cannot 


56  A   Kipling   Primer 

labor  out  o'  doors.  One  of  Kipling's  characters 
"  held  peculiar  notions  as  to  the  wooing  of  girls. 
He  said  that  the  best  work  of  a  man's  career  should 
be  laid  reverently  at  their  feet."  Kipling  adds, 
"  Ruskin  writes  something  like  this  somewhere,  I 
think  ;  but  in  ordinary  life  a  few  kisses  are  better 
and  save  time."  Love,  in  Kipling's  thought,  is 
not  a  passion  to  abandon  one's  self  to.  Only  little 
Hindu  widows  or  very  callow  subalterns  make 
this  blunder,  and  they  always  pay  for  it.  I  cannot 
but  feel  that  Kipling  always  has  a  slight  tone  of 
patronage  toward  women.  The  women  whom  he 
really  likes  are  those  who  have  most  of  the  mascu- 
line grafted  into  their  natures.  They  are  either 
clever  in  argument,  like  Mrs.  Hauksbee,  or  able 
to  "  rule  eight  servants  and  two  horses,"  like 
"  William  the  Conqueror."  Love,  it  is  true, 
forms  the  basis  of  very  many  of  Kipling's  stories. 
But  it  will  be  noted  that  his  interest  is  not  in  the 
sentiment  or  the  passion  itself,  but  in  the  compli- 
cations  growing  therefrom. 

If  Mr.  Kipling  finds  small  place  for  passionate 
love  he  finds  almost  none  for  spiritual  love.  I  have 
already  intimated  that  the  tenderness  of  the  All 
Father  means  less  to  him  than  the  power  of  the  All 
Ruler.  u  The  Lord  is  a  just  and  terrible  God, 
Bess,"  Dick  Heldar  explains.  That  seems  to  be  the 
view  of  Mulholland,  of  McAndrew,  of  all  the  mili- 
tant saints  of  these  ballads  and  stories.      Marked    as 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  57 

is  the  growth  of  religious  insight  in  Mr.  Kipling's 
recent  writings,  the  years  have  still  much  to  teach 
him.  He  has  sung  of  obedience  and  work,  none 
more  nobly  ;  may  we  not  hope  that  he  will  yet  rise 
to  the  Apostolic  conception  :  "The  greatest  of  these 
is  Love  "   ? 

Ill 

GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS 

15.  Originality.  —  Mr.  Kipling  seems  never 
to  have  imitated  anybody.  He  has  been  compared 
to  Bret  Harte,  to  Pierre  Loti,  to  Dickens.  But  the 
truth  is,  he  owes  practically  nothing  to  other  writers. 
He  formed  himself  on  no  classic  models,  but  relied 
for  inspiration  solely  upon  "  that  Light  which  light- 
eth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  He  is 
as  truly  a  successful  original  as  Carlyle  or  Browning 
or  Walt  Whitman. 

His  originality  is  shown  first  of  all  in  his  choice 
of  theme.  Politicians  and  compilers  of  statistics 
wrote  about  India  for  centuries,  but  the  novelists 
passed  it  by.  A  young  man,  picking  up  the  dis- 
carded material,  taught  the  world  more  about  the 
Orient  than  all  histories  and  blue-books,  and 
"  brought  India  nearer  to  England  than  the  Suez 
Canal  has  done."  He  has  made  us  see  India,  and 
feel  it,  and  smell  it. 

He  has  dared  also  to  write  of  the  common  soldier, 


,: 


58  A   Kipling   Primer 

who,  for  the  most  part,  had  been  overlooked  by  the 
novelists  and  poets,  and  has  made  us  understand  that 
Tommy  is  "  most  remarkable  like  [us]."  He  has 
crept  into  the  native  mind,  and  given  the  reader  not 
clever  guesses  as  to  the  Oriental's  point  of  view,  but 
actual  bits  of  his  psychology.  He  has  made  the 
outside  world  know  Anglo-Indian  society.  More 
recently  he  has  given  us  some  marvellous  studies  of 
the  Jungle-folk.  None  of  these  things  had  ever 
been   done  before. 

To  some  observers  Mr.  Kipling's  treatment  of 
marhjpprv  constitutes  the  most  original  feature  of 
his  work.  It  is  true  that  no  writer  has  with  such 
persistence  and  brilliancy  sung  the  "  Song  o'  Steam." 
•.  Yet  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Walt  Whitman 
\  celebrated  modern  mechanical  inventions  with  great 
imaginative  power.  How  far  the  younger  writer  is 
indebted  to  Whitman  may  be  disputed,  but  absolute 
originality  in  this  field  can  hardly  be  conceded  to  the 
author  of  "  McAndrew's  Hymn."  Did  not  Whit- 
man, addressing  the  locomotive,  speak  of 

'<  Thy  black  cylindric  body,  golden  brass,  and  silvery  steel, 
Thy  ponderous  side-bars,    parallel  and   connecting  rods,  gy- 
rating, shuttling  at  thy  sides"  ?  l 

Was    it   not  Whitman  who  wrote    the   finest    de- 
scription of  the  ocean  cable  ever  penned  : 

"  The  seas  inlaid  with  eloquent  gentle  wires"  ?2 


1  "  To  a  Locomotive  in  Winter." 

2  "  Passage  to  India." 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  59 

The  two  poets  are  alike  in  their  idealization  of 
machinery.  They  differ  chiefly  in  this  :  the  younger 
man  knows  machinery  not  only  as  a  poet,  but  also 
as  an  inventor ;  the  older  man  looked  at  it  with  the 
eves  of  a  poet  only. 

But  Mr.  Kipling  is  original  in  manner  as  well  as 
in  theme.  In  the  Jungle  Books  he  has  created  a  dis- 
tinctly new  form  of  literature  —  as  different  from 
^Esop  as  from  his  other  closest  prototype  in  this 
kind,  Mr.  Joel  Chandler  Harris.  He  has  invented 
for  his  short  stories  a  prose  style  so  bare  of  all  con- 
ventional and  pedantic  devices  that  puzzled  critics 
have  denied  to  him  the  possession  of  style  at  all. 
He  seems  to  write  not  in  words  but  in  pictures. 
Still  more  original,  if  anything,  is  his  verse.  "  Kip- 
Iingesque  manner  "  has  come  to  stand  for  a  well- 
known  type.  Its  features  are  virility^  a  fondness 
for  specific  words,  the  frequent  union  of  the  beau-  \ 
tiful  with  the  grotesque,  and  a  swift  and  splendid 
metrical  movement  as  inimitable  as  it  is  indefinable. 

After  all  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Mr.  Kipling 
has  ever  done  a  more  original  thing  than  in  mak- 
ing the  cockney  jargon  of  the  Barrack  Room  Ballads 
poetic.  That  the  dialect  of  Burns  is  suited  to  pur- 
poses of  poetry  is  very  plain.  It  is  archaic,  not  ig- 
norant. The  Atkins  vernacular,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  not  properly  dialect  at  all.  We  should  say  on 
general  principles  that  this  corrupt  patois,  this  very 
refuse  of  human  speech,  is   totally  unsuited   for  the1 


60  A   Kipling   Primer 

\ 
poet's  use,  and  should  incline  to  doubt  whether  any 
living  poet  could  do  more  than  to  make  it  into  witty 
verse.  Yet  whoever  does  not  call  "  Mandalay  "  and 
"  Danny  Deever  "  poetry  is  ignorant  of  poetry  when 
he  sees  it.  "_To  make  the  common  marvellous^ 
as  if  it  were  a  revelation,  is  a  test  of  genius," 
said  Mr.  Lowell!  No  writer  of  our  century  has 
met  this  test  more  unmistakably  than  Rudyard 
Kipling. 

1 6.  Imperialism.  —  Mr.  Kipling  is  the  Cecil 
Rhodes  of  literature.  No  one  has  done  more  to 
give  Englishmen  an  imaginative  conception  of  their 
colonial  possessions,  or  to  cultivate  in  them  a  lofty 
patriotic  pride.  "  Mr.  Kipling's  most  characteristic 
work  is  really  saturated  with  politics,"  says  Black- 
wood's,'—  "  the  politics  of  true  statesmanship."  It 
is  difficult  to  decide  whether  his  influence  is  greater  in 
literature  or  in  public  affairs.  His  voice  is  for  the 
closer  union  of  English-speaking  peoples,  and  bitterly 
against  a  false  liberalism  that  would  extend  the 
privileges  of  self-government  in  advance  of  the  prep- 
aration of  subject  races  to  receive  it,  —  equally 
against,  also,  the  insular  complacency  of  the  "  Little 
Englander"  who  is  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of 
colonial  dependencies  or  who  selfishly  ignores  it. 
"What  should  they  know  of  England,"  Kipling 
asks  in  "The  English  Flag,"  "who  only  England 
know  ?  "  In  his  great  chant  of  imperialism,  "  The 
Native-Born,"  he  pledges  faith 


; 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  61 

"  To  the  last  and  the  largest  Empire, 
To  the  map  that  is  half  unrolled. " 

There  have  been  laureates  of  England  in  plenty,  but 
never  before  a  laureate  of  the  British  Empire.  Born 
in  India,  educated'  in  England,  a  traveller  in  South 
Africa  and  almost  every  colony  that  owes  allegiance 
to  Victoria,  for  several  years  an  American  resident, 
—  Mr.  Kipling  has  indeed  followed  "  the  war-drum 
of  the  white  man  round  the  world."  1 

For  his  intense  allegiance  to  Britain  Mr.  Kipling 
has  not  escaped  criticism.  A  recent  writer  has  com- 
plained of  his  devotion  to  the  idea  of  "  the  supremacy 
of  the  British  Empire  over  all  the  globe  for  the  sake 
of  materialism  and  bv  means  of  militarism. 
The  virtue  which  Kipling  lays  stress  upon  is  the 
military  virtue  of  obedience  for  militant  ends." 2 
This  is  a  partial  misconception.  Mr.  Kipling  is  none 
the  less  human  or  representative  ;  on  the  contrary, 
he  is  more  so,  because  so  national.  A  flower  shares 
the  general  life  of  nature  only  by  feeding  on  the  soil 
around  its  root.  No  one  can  become  a  citizen  of 
the  world  until  he  has  been  truly  a  citizen  of  his  own 
country,  till  he  has  been  able  to  say  with  Whitman  : 
"  I  stand  in  my  place  with  my  own  day  here." 

Thus  much  for  the  implied  charge  of  provincialism. 
As   for   Kipling's    materialism,  it   is   plain    that   the 

1 "  Song  of  the  Banjo." 

2  Charlotte  Porter  in  Poet-Lore. 


62  A   Kipling   Primer 

objector  has  failed  to  read  between  his  lines.  Mr. 
Kipling  is  not  at  bottom  a  materialist,  but  a  psychol- 
ogist, I  had  almost  said  moralist.  The  material 
product  resulting  from  human  energy  interests  him 
as  the  tangible  expression  of  character.  As  to  the 
"  militant  ends,"  the  notion  is  so  patently  absurd  that 
it  hardly  calls  for  refutation.  That  the  end  he  has 
in  view  is  material  and  vulgar  prosperity  —  this  is  a 
gratuitous  assumption  denied  by  every  line  of  his 
writings.  He  seeks  the  permanent  well-being  of  the 
world,  an  end  to  be  achieved  only,  as  he  reasons,  by 
securing  the  well-being  of  that  race  or  of  those  races 
best  fitted  to  dominate  the  world,  to  shape  its  ideals, 
and  to  control  its  destiny.  In  Mr.  Kipling's  prose 
and  verse  the  goal  toward  which  the  Saxon  struggle 
for  supremacy  is  directed  is 

"  An  hundred  times  made  plain, 
To  seek  another's  profit 

And  work  another's  gain."  ' 

One  cannot  deny,  however,  that  the  immediate 
means  by  which  Mr.  Kipling  looks  for  the  advance 
of  civilization  is  militarism.  It  is  not  the  God  of 
Things  as  They  Should  Be  that  he  worships.  If 
there  be  any  defect  in  his  philosophy  of  human 
progress  it  lies  in  his  danger  of  relatively  undervalu- 
ing the  effectiveness  of  quiet  spiritual  forces  as 
opposed  to  the  forces  more  spectacular  and  demonstra- 
tive. We  would  respectfully  recall  to  his  memory  a 
1 "  The  White  Man's  Burden." 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  63 

passage  from  a  very  old-fashioned  book  :  "  And,  be- 
hold, the  Lord  passed  by,  and  a  great  and  strong  wind 
rent  the  mountains,  and  brake  in  pieces  the  rocks 
before  the  Lord ;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  wind  : 
and  after  the  wind  an  earthquake;  but  the  Lord  was 
not  in  the  earthquake ;  and  after  the  earthquake  a 
fire ;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  fire  :  and  after  the 
fire  a  still  small  voice." 

17.  Treatment  of  Nature.  —  In  traversing 
his  imperial  domain  with  Mr.  Kipling  we  are  im- 
pressed not  only  with  the  sense  of  tramping  armies, 
rolling  ships,  and  flying  flags,  we  are  struck  by  the 
out-of-door  feeling  of  it  all,  by  the  great  ^trejtches^of^ 
plain  and  ocean  and  coast-line,  and  the  sound  of  the 
wind  about  our  ears7~~ 

Yet  nature,  in  the  thought  of  Mr.  Kipling,  is 
simply  the  background  for  humanity.  He  has  little 
of  the  contemplative  spirit.  He  has  nothing  of  that 
half-indolent,  brooding  receptiveness  of  effects  from 
every  source  whereby  Tennyson  permitted  a  scene 
to  mirror  itself  in  quiet  harmony  on  his  mind's 
retina.  He  is  too  impatient,  too  alert  for  this. 
You  would  hardly  expect  to  find  him  writing  a  song 
to  the  daisy  or  a  sonnet  on  a  daffodil,  or  celebrating 
the  joys  of  solitary  communion  with  the  landscape. 
Nor  has  he  any  "  philosophy  of  nature."  He  con— 
ceives  of  nature  neither,  as  Wordsworth  and  Shelley 
do,  as  if  she  possessed  a  distinctly  personal  Hfe,  nor 
as   Keats   does,  as  though    she  were  peopled    with 


64  A   Kipling   Primer 

mythical  beings  apart  both  from  human  life  and 
her  own.  He  constantly  personifies  natural  phe- 
nomena, but  never  forgets  that  he  is  talking  in 
metaphor.  Note  several  instances  of  his  interpre- 
tation of  natural  scenery  or  force  in  terms  of 
human   activity  : 

"  The  wind  that  tramps  the  world."" 

"  The  deaf,  gray-bearded  seas." 

<  <  The  hours  struck   clear  in    the   cabin  ;   the   nosing   bows 

slapped  and  scuffled  with  the  seas.1' 

"  All  night  the  red  flame  stabbed  the  sky 

With  wavering,  wind-tossed  spears.'" 

"  Hot  moist  orchids  that  make  mouths  at  you." 

"  The  winter  moon  was  walking  the  untroubled  sea." 

"  Driving  a  whispering  wall  of  water  to  right  and  left." 

"  The  Peace  Rock  lay  across  the  shallows  like  a  long  snake, 

and  the  little  tired  ripples  hissed  as  they  dried  on  its  hot  side." 

Personification  is  common  in  all  imaginative  writ- 
ing, but  its  use  in  Kipling  deserves  special  note. 
His  interest  is  so  exclusively  centred  in  the  activi- 
ties of  men  and  women  that  he  has  to  transfer  their 
various  forms  of  effort  to  his  landscape  before  enter- 
ing into  its  spirit  with  much  sympathy.  Thus  we 
hear  of  the  seawater's  "  choking  and  chuckling,"  of 
the  winds  "  herding  the  purple-blue  cloud-shadows," 
of  "  the  kiss  of  rain,"  of  the  earth  "  breathing  lightly 
in  the  pauses  between  the  howling  of  the  jackals," 
of  "  the  thunder  chattering  overhead,"  of  "  the  trees 
thrashing  each  other."  The  advantage  of  this  de- 
scriptive method  lies   in   its   vividness  ;  it  translates 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  65 

the  less  familiar  into  the  more  familiar :  the  abstract 
conception  into  the  concrete  image. 

18.  Description.  —  If  he  portrays  natural  scen- 
ery with  a  few  vital  strokes,  Mr.  Kipling  applies  the 
same  method  to  all  his  descriptive  passages.  His 
great  achievement  is  that  of  actually  making  the 
reader  see  things.  What  a  second-class  writer 
would  dredge  the  dictionary  in  describing,  he  packs 
into  a  curt,  truncated  sentence.  "  Give  me  one 
adjective,"  he  seems  to  say,  "  and  I  will  do  more 
than  you  could  with  a  portfolio  of  them  ;  but  you 
must  let  me  choose  the  adjective."  His  selective 
instinct  is  unfaltering.  He  picks  out  from  the 
myriad  details  of  a  scene  those  two  or  three  which 
suggest  the  whole.  His  method  is  never  the  patient, 
elaborate  manner  of  Tennyson,  laying  in  every  line 
and  shadow  with  Pre-Raphaelite  precision.  Mr. 
Kipling  spirits  you  out  of  doors.  You  are  not 
reading  about  a  place,  you  are  seated  square  in  it. 
It  is  nothing  less  than  verbal  magic.  Take,  for 
instance,  this  picture  of  his  beloved  North-country 
drawn  by  a  homesick  Afridi  horse-thief :  "  The 
bloom  of  the  peach-orchards  is  upon  all  the  Valley, 
and  here  is  only  dust  and  a  great  stink.  There  is  a 
pleasant  wind  among  the  mulberry-trees,  and  the 
streams  are  bright  with  snow-water,  and  the  cara- 
vans go  up  and  the  caravans  go  down,  and  a  hun- 
dred fires  sparkle  in  the  gut  of  the  Pass,  and  tent-peg 
answers   hammer-nose,    and    pack-horse   squeals    to 


66  A   Kipling   Primer 

pack-horse  across  the  drift  smoke  of  the  evening. 
It  is  good  in  the  North  now.  Come  back  with  me."  ! 
There  are  few  situations  which  Mr.  Kipling  is 
unable  to  describe  with  success,  but  two,  at  least, 
he  pictures  with  a  mastery  which  is  beyond  anything 
in  modern  literature.  Whenever  he  writes  of  the 
open  sea  or  whenever  he  touches  upon  a  battle- 
scene,  he  is  preeminent.  Nowhere,  unless  in  Shake- 
speare, shall  one  discover  sea-pictures  which  equal 
some  of  those  in  "  A  Matter  of  Fact "  and  "  Captains 
Courageous.'"  None  of  his  contemporaries,  unless 
Mr.  Stephen  Crane,  and  scarcely  one  of  his  prede- 
cessors, no,  not  Sir  Walter  himself,  has  approached 
the  vividness  of  certain  battle-pictures  in  "  With 
the  Main  Guard,"  The  Light  that  Failed,  "  Mutiny 
of  the  Mavericks,"  and  "  Drums  of  the  Fore  and 
Aft."     They  are  painted  in  blood  and  fire. 

19.  Characterization.  —  If  description  is  Mr. 
Kipling's  strongest  side,  character-drawing  is  his 
weakest.  Or  let  us  say  that  with  him  character- 
ization is  another  kind  of  description.  His  fiction 
forms  a  sort  of  verbal  "  biograph  "  :  though  his 
pictures  move,  they  remain  pictures  none  the  less. 
After  reading  his  stories  one  is  left  with  an  impres- 
sion of  remarkably  vigorous  delineation,  but  not 
with  the  feeling  that  one  has  watched  the  natural 
and  inevitable  growth  of  character.  Hardly  any- 
body, indeed,  develops  in  Kipling.  Maisie  and 
1 "  Dray  Wara  Yow  Dee." 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  67 

Dick,  Tarvin  and  Kate  —  they  are  the  same  at  the 
end  of  the  book  as  at  the  outset.  Harvey  Cheyne 
suffers  a  sea-change,  perhaps,  but  his  sudden  re- 
generation is  not  so  much  a  study  in  the  evolution 
of  character  as  a  study  in  the  relation  of  environ- 
ment to  conduct.  Nor  is  there  anything  save 
the  different  circumstances  surrounding  them 
that  enables  us  to  tell  apart  certain  of  the  men 
and  women  who  reappear  in  the  short  stories. 
Mrs.  Hauksbee  is  not  clearly  discriminated  from  Mrs. 
Polly  Mallowe  or  from  Mrs.  Harriet  Herriott.  Mrs. 
Reiver  differs  from  her  hated  rival  only  by  being 
plainly  labelled  :  "  wicked  in  a  business-like  way," 
and  "  not  honestly  mischievous  like  Mrs.  Hauks- 
bee." Mowgli,  marvellous  creature  though  he  is, 
is  less  an  individualized  character  than  a  type  of  the 
natural  man  highly  idealized.  The  familiar  musket- 
eers may  seem  to  refute  the  truth  of  our  generaliza- 
tion. But  Learoyd,  closely  as  his  dialect  is  caught, 
is  on  the  whole  rather  shadowy  —  an  "  'ayrick 
in  trousies;"  Ortheris,  while  a  more  clear-cut 
figure,  is  a  generic  cockney  ;  and  Mulvaney  a  typical 
son  of  Erin  plus  something  of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling. 
The  Irishman  and  Londoner  are  actual,  but  they 
fail  to  live  and  move  and  have  their  being  as  Lear 
does,  or  Hamlet,  or  Falstaff,  or  Doctor  Primrose, 
or  Colonel  Newcome.  Verisimilitude  is  not  verity. 
It  must  be  observed  that  in  the  case  of  all  his  most 
striking    personages    Mr.  Kipling    has  the    distinct 


68  A   Kipling   Primer 

advantage  (in  this  he  is  Dickens'  own  son)  of 
choosing  individuals  who  are  marked  by  some  ex- 
ternal idiosyncrasy.  Mulvaney  is  at  once  set  apart 
from  the  rest  by  his  Irish  wit  and  brogue,  by  his 
height,  by  his  appetite  for  strong  waters.  Otheris 
is  remembered  by  his  diminutive  stature,  his  dog- 
stealing  propensities,  and  his  fondness  for  the 
Adjective.  Were  the  author  to  choose  characters 
whose  appearance  and  manner  was  similar,  and 
aim  to  differentiate  them  by  subtle  mental  differ- 
ences which  called  for  powers  of  insight  rather 
than  for  exercise  of  the  descriptive  faculty,  his 
inferiority  to  more  than  one  contemporary  —  take 
Mr.  Meredith  as  a  single  example  —  would  be 
apparent. 

Mr.  Kipling's  characters  seem  to  be  infinitely 
various,  yet  they  are  principally  limited  to  the  folk 
who  engage  in  the  day's  work.  With  spineless,  in- 
dolent men  who  take  their  ideas  from  books,  with 
flaccid,  washed-out  women  who  can't  ride  a  horse 
or  run  a  house,  he  has  little  sympathy.  The  few 
people  of  this  sort  who  appear  in  his  pages  are  intro- 
duced only  to  be  hastily  chastised  and  dismissed. 
When  he  approaches  the  narrowly  evangelical  type 
so  concerned  with  prayers  and  phylacteries  that  it  is 
content  to  leave  the  day's  work  to  others,  his  usual 
tolerance  deserts  him  and  he  descends  into  fiercest 
caricature.  When  he  describes  children  he  is  apt  to 
make  them  monsters  of  precocity.      In  order  to  in- 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  69 

terest  him  they  must  bring  things  to  pass,  even  like 
their  stalwart  fathers  and  mothers  whom  he  loves. 
Wee  Willie  Winkie,  a  prodigy  of  six  years,  effects 
a  marvellous  rescue  of  a  young  lady  surrounded  by 
bandits.  Tods,  a  youth  of  the  same  age,  discusses 
politics  with  Indian  officials  and  actually  influences 
legislation.  What  a  spectacle  is  this  !  Men  at 
work,  women  at  work,  children  at  work  !  And  be- 
hind the  ranks  of  toiling  and  fighting  humanity  the 
imperturbable  young  poet  urging  them  on  by  word 
and  example  to  still  greater  activity  ! 

But  Mr.  Kipling's  characterization  is  not  only 
varied  and  strenuous,  it  is  saturated  with  humor. 
The  grim  sardonic  wit  of  the  early  ballads,  the  irony 
of  the  early  stories,  melt  gradually  into  a  kinder 
spirit  —  but  the  fun  is  still  there.  It  is  often 
mingled  so  closely  with  pathos  that  they  cannot 
easily  be  disentangled.  "  Comic  stuff  and  tragic 
sadness  "  stand  cheek  by  jowl  in  "  Thrown  Away  ;  " 
in  "  Tomlinson  "  we  laugh  and  shudder  at  the  same 
moment. 

"  Vulgar  tunes  that  bring  the  laugh  that  brings  the  groan  — 
I  can  rip  your  very  heart-strings  out  with  those," 

boasts  the  poet's  banjo.  Only  writers  of  extraordi- 
nary power  can  touch  at  the  same  instant  the  springs 
of  merriment  and  of  tears.  Shakespeare,  of  course, 
is  the  master  in  this  sort,  but  Mr.  Kipling  is  an  apt 
disciple. 

I    have    already    said,    however,    that    character- 


70  A   Kipling   Primer 

drawing  is  not  Mr.  Kipling's  forte.  He  finds  it  dif- 
ficult to  keep  his  own  personality  out  of  that  of  his 
creation,  and  is  always  in  danger  of  introducing  false 
touches  into  his  very  best  work.  In  "  With  the 
Main  Guard,"  after  Ortheris  has  produced  his  bottles 
of  gingerade,  Mulvaney  inquires,  "  Where  did  ye 
get  ut,  ye  Machiavel  ?  "  Again,  take  this  :  "  Or- 
theris had  considered  the  question  in  all  its  bear- 
ings. He  spoke,  chewing  his  pipe-stem  meditatively 
the  while  : 

"  *  "  Go  forth,  return  in  glory, 

To  Clusiurrfs  royal  'orae  : 
An1  round  these  bloomiif  temples  'ang 
The  bloomin'  shields  o1  Rome."  '  "  ' 

Once  more  (Mulvaney  is  speaking)  :  "  Spit  it  out, 
Jock,  an'  bellow  melojus  to  the  moon.  It  takes  an 
earthquake  or  a  bullet  graze  to  fetch  aught  out  av 
you.  Discourse,  Don  Juan  !  The  a-moors  av 
Lotharius   Learoyd  !  "  2 

Bessie,  illiterate  and  immoral,  thus  solicits  Tor- 
penhow  in  The  Light  that  Failed :  "  Oh,  please, 
'tisn't  as  if  I  was  asking  you  to  marry  me.  I 
wouldn't  think  of  it.  But  cou —  couldn't  you  take 
and  live  with  me  till  Miss  Right  comes  along  ?  I'm 
only  Miss  Wrong,  I  know,  but  I'd  work  my  hands 
to  the  bare  bone  for  you."  Another  singularly  infe- 
licitous  touch    is   that  where   our   author  makes  the 

1  "  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney." 

2  "  On  Greenhow  Hill." 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  71 

"  Brushwood  girl,"  most  sensitive  and  highly-bred 
of  women,  exclaim  in  a  moment  of  strong  feeling, 
"  My  God  !  "  One  unfortunate  line  in  "  Gunga 
Din  "  mars  a  masterpiece.  Even  Mr.  Kipling  fails 
to  convince  us  that  a  water-carrier  who  is  dying  of 
a  mortal  wound,  model  of  unselfishness  though  he 
be,  would  gasp  with  his  last  death-rattle  :  "  I  'ope 
you  liked  your  drink."  It  is  precisely  what  he 
would   not   have  said. 

20.  Mastery  of  the  Short  Story.  —  Mr. 
Kipling  has  inexhaustible  inventiveness.  To  have 
written  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  stories, 
hardly  one  of  which  gives  the  reader  the  impression 
of  being  some  familiar  set  of  incidents  turned  up 
again,  is  to  have  revealed  very  unusual  talents,  but 
to  have  handled  these  plots  with  such  sure  artistic 
sense  is  to  have  accomplished  far  more. 

Possibly  the  most  wonderful  feat  that  Kipling  has 
performed  is  the  mastery  of  the  short  story  as  a  liter- 
ary form.  In  accomplishing  this  he  has  succeeded 
where  nearly  every  English  writer  who  preceded 
him  has  failed.  Englishmen  have  been  able  to 
write  a  good  three-volume  novel  ever  since  Richard- 
son, but,  with  perhaps  half  a  dozen  exceptions,  they 
have  not  produced  a  single  short  story  that  can  take 
its  place  beside  the  little  perfections  of  France  and 
America.  Yet  Mr.  Kipling  has  written  more  than 
a  score,  to  be  very  conservative,  that  are  masterly  in 
form  and  brilliant  in  content.      They  are   not   pages 


j2  A  Kipling  Primer 

torn  from  some  unfinished  novel,  they  u  are  cast  at 
once,  as  if  in  a  mold." 

Even  in  the  Plain  Tales  this  unique  power  is  ap- 
parent. These  early  stories  were  marred  by  man- 
nerisms which  the  author  has  since  discarded.  Yet 
note  that  these  very  mannerisms  were  always  em- 
ployed in  the  interest  of  conciseness.  He  abbrevi- 
ates almost  to  the  point  of  obscurity  ;  he  ends  a 
broken  sentence  with  a  dash ;  he  omits  his  finite 
verbs ;  he  overwhelms  the  lay  reader  with  a  flood 
of  military  initials,  since  you  see  it  saves  space  to 
write  C.  O.  rather  than  commanding  officer.  Even 
his  trick  of  saying,  "  But  that  is  another  story  .  .  .  ," 
shows  his  conscious,  if  not  ostentatious,  effort  to 
keep  himself  within  bounds.  The  result  is  a  sort 
of  tale  condensed  almost  to  anecdote.  Introduc- 
tions and  preliminary  explanations  are  suggested 
by  a  phrase  or  cut  out ;  conclusions  exist  in  your 
stimulated  imagination,  you  will  not  find  them  on 
the  page;  not  a  word  anywhere  could  be  spared 
or  added.  The  power  of  the  tales  is  in  their  sud- 
denness. They  are  not  paintings,  growing,  stroke 
by  stroke,  under  the  artist's  brush.  They  are 
stereopticon  pictures  projected  instantly  upon  the 
screen. 

In  some  of  his  recent  fiction  Mr.  Kipling,  while 
showing  gain  in  analysis  and  maturity  of  thought, 
gives  evidence  of  having  lost  this  early  power.  He 
has  seldom  been  at  his  best  in  the  elaborate  method. 


Mr.   Kipltng's  Writings  73 

Maisie,  in  The  Light  that  Failed,  who  is  described  at 
length,  is  less  real  to  our  imagination  that  the  red- 
haired  girl,  revealed  in  three  or  four  lightning 
glimpses.  It  is  the  misfortune  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
later  style  that  he  is  explicit  where  he  was  once 
suggestive.  In  such  tales  as  "  The  Devil  and  the 
Deep  Sea"  and  "The  Ship  that  Found  Herself  "  he 
shows  that  he  has  forgotten  the  force  of  the  epigram  : 
"  The  secret  of  being  dull  is  to  tell  all  you  know." 

It  may  be  said  in  passing  that  the  swift  concise- 
ness which  seems  to  have  departed  from  his  prose 
style  has  been,  oddly  enough,  transferred  to  his 
poetry.  His  recent  ballads  are  so  tightly  packed 
with  meaning  that  their  rapid  allusiveness  often 
approaches  the   verge  of  obscurity. 

21.  Mastery  of  Metre.  —  Yet  it  must  be 
said  that,  on  the  whole,  Mr.  Kipling's  mastery  of 
form  in  poetical  composition  is  no  less  remarkable 
than  his  mastery  of  form  in  story-writing.  His 
metres  are  as  various  as  his  themes.  Though  his 
favorite  metrical  scheme  is  simple,  his  inventiveness, 
when  he  leaves  his  swinging  ballad  measures,  and 
sets  out  in  quest  of  variety,  is  almost  unrivalled. 
No  matter  how  intricate  the  problem  he  sets  himself, 
he  is  certain  to  solve  it.  "The  Song  of  the  Banjo" 
is  an  instance  in  point.  It  presents  technical  diffi- 
culties that  would  have  baffled  any  other  living 
writer,  yet  the  poet  overrides  them  with  ingenuity 
and  apparent  ease. 


74  A   Kipling   Primer 

It  may  be  questioned,  however,  whether  the  music 
inherent  in  Mr.  Kipling's  lines  has  much  subtlety, 
or  in  any  sense  equals  his  force,  metrical  facility, 
or  precision  of  phrase.  So  many  of  his  poems 
are  heel-and-toe  choruses  that  one  doubts  whether 
the  poet  will  ever  wholly  emancipate  himself  from 
this  regimental  mood.  "  White  Horses  "  and  a  few 
other  lyrics  begin  to  give  us  hope,  but  it  must  be 
said  in  general  that  he  marches  in  strict  time  to  the 
band.  What  he  gains  in  speed,  he  loses  in  repose ; 
what  he  gains  in  ornament  of  phrase,  he  loses  in 
simplicity.  Mr.  Kipling's  verse  is  rhetorical  and 
declamatory.  Very  little  of  it  can  be  classed  with 
that  highest  order  of  poetry,  devoid  of  every  sus- 
picion of  "  style,"  which  Nature  seems  to  have 
penned  herself.  Representative  examples  in  this 
kind  are  Wordsworth's  Lucy  lyrics  and  the  best 
songs  of  Burns  and  of  Blake.  Brilliant  is  not  the 
word  one  applies  to  these.  One  never  thinks  of 
the  authors  as  composing  them.  They  are  inevi- 
table. Mr.  Kipling's  poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
more  like  that  of  Byron,  of  Campbell,  of  Dryden, 
of  Macaulay,  though  far  surpassing  in  one  respect  or 
another  the  work  of  each  of  them.  It  is  excessively 
clever,  it  is  eloquent  and  sonorous  to  a  degree,  but 
it  falls  short  of  that  "nobly  plain  manner"  admired 
by  Matthew  Arnold,  which  is  really  the  crowning 
triumph  of  expression.  The  one  immortal  excep- 
tion is  the  "  Recessional,"  which  is  as  unadorned  as 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  75 

a  Greek  statue.  For  once  feeling  and  expression 
absolutely  fuse  ;  there  is  no  suspicion  of  artifice. 
See  how  it  depends  on  nouns  and  verbs  : 

"  The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies  — 
The  captains  and  the  kings  depart." 

In  the  first  seven  lines  there  are  only  two  descrip- 
tive adjectives. 

22.  Diction. —  Mr.  Kipling  has  the  gift  of  the 
inevitable  word.  "  It  is  the  paradox  of  poetry  that 
it  permits  no  synonyms."  Like  every  true  poet,  he  is 
not  content  with  an  excellent  epithet,  he  must  have 
the  absolute  one.  It  is  in  this  power  that  his  suc- 
cess as  a  poet  preeminently,  and  as  a  prose  writer, 
very  largely,  lies.  Let  him  take  a  jog-trot  metre, 
such  as  that  of  "  The  White  Man's  Burden  "  (see 
what  doggerel  his  host  of  imitators  have  made  out 
of  it),  and  then  watch  what  he  can  accomplish. 
Does  not  his  triumph  consist  principally  in  the 
glove-like  fit  of  such  phrases  as  "  new-caught  sullen 
peoples,  half  devil  and  half  child  "  ?  The  common- 
place tramp  of  "  McAndrew's  Hymn  "  is  saved  from 
utter  monotony  by  such  lines  as  this  :  "  By  night 
those  soft,  lasceevious  stars  leered  from  those  velvet 
skies." 

In  his  choice  of  words  Mr.  Kipling  always  strikes 
for  concreteness.  His  aversion  to  the  indefinite  and 
abstract  amounts  almost  to  horror.  Circumlocutions 
and  euphemisms  he  spews  out  of  his  mouth.  Not 
only  does  he    call  a  spade  a  spade,  he    refuses  to 


76  A   Kipling   Primer 

supplant  honest  old  Saxon  words,  which  were 
good  enough  for  Bible  translators  and  for  Shake- 
speare, with  those  roundabout  equivalents  which  a 
sophisticated  modern  taste  regards  more  delicate. 
His  passion  for  specific  words  has  betrayed  him,  also, 
into  a  curious  literary  fallacy.  A  specific  word  pre- 
sents a  more  lively  image  than  a  general  or  class 
term  ;  hence,  he  argues,  the  precise  word  which  a 
tradesman  or  mechanic  employs  has  more  vividness 
than  an  indefinite  term  applied  by  the  layman.  Con- 
sistent with  his  theory,  he  dumps  into  a  few  of  his 
later  stories  the  whole  vocabulary  of  technical  cant, 
forgetting  that  even  a  general  term  which  we  under- 
stand presents  to  the  eye  a  clearer  image  than  a 
technical  term  at  whose  meaning  we  can  only  guess. 
On  the  whole,  Mr.  Kipling  writes  the  clearest  and 
most  picturesque  prose  of  any  living  author.  His 
use  of  technical  jargon  is  at  the  worst  a  mistaken 
essay  in  a  right  direction,  and  as  yet  appears  to  be 
rather  a  dangerous  tendency  than  a  settled  fault. 
We  would  remind  him,  however,  of  the  words  he 
once  wrote  of  Wressley  :  "  He  began  his  book  in 
the  land  he  was  writing  of.  .  .  .  He  must  have 
guessed  that  he  needed  the  white  light  of  local  color 
on  his  palette.  This  is  a  dangerous  paint  for  ama- 
teurs to  play  with."  Yes,  Mr.  Kipling,  and  it  is 
dangerous  paint  even  for  accomplished  artists.  A 
few  nautical  terms  or  names  of  tools  and  machines 
add  reality  to  a  description,  but  a  solid  page  of  this 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  77 

sort  of  thing  is  apt  to  be  a  bore.  When  one  has 
been  treated  to  whole  paragraphs  reeking  with  infor- 
mation about  garboard-strakes,  link-heads,  crank- 
throws,  crates,  and  fall-ropes,  one  may  be  pardoned 
for  exclaiming,  even  if  one  has  the  devil  for  com- 
pany, "  It's  clever,  but  is  it  art  ? "  To  the  mind 
of  the  present  writer  there  can  be  only  one 
answer. 

But  Mr.  Kipling  seeks  not  only  for  the  most  con- 
crete, but  also  for  the  most  suggestive  word.  When 
he  says  he  had  "  the  smell  of  the  drinking  earth  in 
[his]  nostrils,"  he  chooses  an  epithet  that  connotes 
the  whole  impression.  When  he  says  of  Kaa,  the 
huge  python,  that  "  he  seemed  to  pour  himself  along 
the  ground,"  and  of  Mulvaney,  when  he  returned 
from  his  Incarnation,  that  he  "  disappeared  to  the 
waist  in  a  wave  of  joyous  dogs,"  he  attains  the  same 
sort  of  magic.  In  his  effort  to  cast  imaginative 
spells,  he  makes  use  of  imitative  words,  frequently 
invented  by  himself. 

"  And  out  of  the  grass  on  a  sudden  broke 

A  spirtle  of  fire,  a  whorl  of  smoke." 

"Then  Tomlinson  he  gripped  the  bars  and  yammered,  «  Let 

me  in.'  " 
"  There  was  a  row  in  Silver  street  —  an'  I  was  in  it  too  ; 
We  passed  the  time  o'  day,  an1  then  the  belts  went  whir- 

raru.'1 
"  There  was  a  profusion  of  squabby,  plufFy  cushions. " 
"The  swords  whinny-whicker  like  angry  kites." 
"  Elephints  a-pilin'  teak 
In  the  sludgy,  squdgy  creek," 


78  A   Kipling  Primer 


"  Forty-pounder  guns: 
Jiggery -jolty  to  and  fro." 

"I  did  not  want  to  plowter  about  any  more  in  the  drizzle 
and  the  dark." 


These  words  are  invariably  apt.  If  there  is  no 
such  noun  as  "bobble"  nor  such  verb  as  u  plopped," 
one  feels  there  ought  to  be,  and  that  Mr.  Kipling 
does  right  to  introduce  them.  Equally  descriptive 
are  his  words  which  stand  for  repeated  sounds  :  "  bat- 
bat-bat,"  "  tap-tap-tapped,"  "  sip-sip-sipping,"  "  wop- 
wop-wop,"  and  any  number  of  others.  But  per- 
haps the  most  daring  of  his  inventions  are  the  words 
imitating  characteristic  sounds  made  by  animals,  as 
«  Aurgh  "  (tiger),  "  Hrrump  "  (elephant),  "  Kssha" 
and  «  Ngssh  "  (snake),  «  Ya-la-hi  !  Yalaha  !  "  (wolf), 
"  chitter-chatter  "  (leaping  rat),  "  chug-drug  "  (boar 
sharpening  his  tusks  on  a  bole).  Nor  does  Kipling's 
coinage  of  words  stop  with  the  class  where  sound 
connotes  sense.  He  improvises  on  whatever  instru- 
ment he  plays.  Is  he  after  humorous  effect  ? 
He  out-Brownings  Browning  with  such  monstrosi- 
ties as  scarabeousness,  adjutaunter,  special-cor- 
respondently  and  whalesome,  or  such  compound 
adjectives  as  expensive-pictures-of-the-nude-adorned, 
Seidlitz-powders-colored,  Government-broad-arrow- 
shaped,  and  hair-trunk-thrown-in-the-trade.  He 
forms  one  part  of  speech  out  of  another,  or  gives 
an  existing  word  a  new  ending,  or  restores  obsolete 
forms  at  his  pleasure  :   badling,  thumbling,  empties 


Mr.    Kipling's  Writings  79 

(noun),  grown-ups,  high-grassed,  hogged,  horsehood, 
know-how  (noun),  long-ago  (adjective),  old-maidism, 
pine-needled,  rocketed,  smashment,  Sahibdom,  vaga- 
bonded, springily,  bad-worded  (verb),  brassily, 
gentled  (verb),  gridironing,  piglet,  deerlets,  rabbity, 
tailing  (part.)  brotherliwise.  His  compound  words 
are  innumerable.  Fire-fanged,  knotty-rooted,  over- 
ankle,  rain-channelled,  sweetish-sourish,  scissor- 
legged,  twiney-tough  —  these  are  samples  out  of  a 
list  numbering  several  hundred  which  I  have  col- 
lected  from   his   prose. 

23.  Figurative  Language.  —  Mr.  Kipling 
shows  his  selective  instinct  no  less  in  his  choice 
of  figures  than  in  that  of  words.  He  is  one 
of  the  greatest  masters  of  metaphor  since  Shake- 
speare. 

It  may"  almost  be  said  that  Mr.  Kipling  writes  in 
nothing  except  figures.  What  is  the  whole  body 
of  his  recent  work  but  metaphor  ?  A  writer  of 
less  penetration  might  have  inveighed  against  the 
materialism  of  an  age  like  ours.  Mr.  Kipling 
idealizes  it,  lifts  it  all  into  the  region  of  symbol. 
Every  crank  and  piston  is  a  letter  in  his  alphabet  of 
spiritual  power.  He  is  the  great  allegorist  of  modern 
times. 

Metaphors,  using  the  word  in  the  rhetorical 
sense,  are  employed  frequently  in  Kipling,  yet  so 
discriminately,  and  with  such  an  insistent  origi- 
nality, as  always  to  avoid    the  merely  florid.      His 


80  A  Kipling  Primer 

tropes  are  notable  equally  for  a  quaint  unconven- 
tionally and  for  aptness. 

So  remarkable  is  Mr.  Kipling's  use  of  metaphor 
that  it  deserves  extensive  illustration.  A  single 
figure  of  speech,  however,  may  be  taken  as  typical. 
Note  the  directness  of  the  following  similes  :  After 
a  river  flood,  which  swept  all  barriers  before  it, "  the 
piers  of  the  Barhwi  Bridge  showed  like  broken  teeth 
in  the  jaw  of  an  old  man."  l  "  The  grass-stems 
held  the  heat  exactly  as  boiler-tubes  do."  2  "  The 
lightning  spattered  the  sky  as  a  thrown  egg  spatters 
a  barn-door."3  "Little  by  little,  very  softly  and 
pleasantly,  she  began  taking  the  conceit  out  of 
Plumes,  as  they  take  the  ribs  out  of  an  umbrella 
before  recovering  it."4  "The  Colonel's  face  set 
like  the  Day  of  Judgment  framed  in  gray  bristles."5 
"Dick  delivered  himself  of  the  saga  of  his  own 
doings,  with  all  the  arrogance  of  a  young  man 
speaking  to  a  woman.  From  the  beginning  he  told 
the  tale,  the  I —  I —  I's  flashing  through  the  records 
as  telegraph-poles  fly  past  the  traveller."  6 

Kipling  frequently  introduces  a  sort  of  Homeric 
simile  which  suggests  the  influence  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  so  strikingly  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  he 

l"  In  Flood  Time." 

2  "  Bubbling  Well  Road." 

3  "  The  Return  of  Imray." 

4  "  The  Rescue  of  Pluffles." 
6  "  His  Wedded  Wife." 

6  The  Light  that  Failed, 


Mr.   Kipling's  Writings  81 

lacks  intimate  acquaintance  with  them.  Here  is  an 
example  from  The  Naulahka  :  "  His  eyes  were  red 
with  opium,  and  he  walked  as  a  bear  walks  when  he 
is  overtaken  by  the  dawn  in  a  poppy-field,  where  he 
has  gorged  his  fill  through  the  night  watches."  The 
Light  that  Failed  yields  good  examples  :  "  As  swiftly 
as  a  reach  of  still  water  is  crisped  by  the  wind, 
the  rock-strewn  ridges  and  scrub-topped  hills  were 
troubled  and  alive  with  armed  men."  Again  :  "  The 
mind  was  quickened,  and  the  revolving  thoughts 
ground  against  each  other  as  mill-stones  grind  when 
there  is  no  corn  between."  Once  more  :  "  A  re- 
frain, slow  as  the  clacking  of  a  capstan  when  the 
boat  comes  unwillingly  up  to  the  bars  where  the 
men   sweat   and   tramp   in   the   shingle."  1 

24.  Prose  Style  in  General.  —  Mr.  Kipling's 
style,  in  a  very  remarkable  degree,  reflects  his  per- 
sonality. His  words  do  not  conceal,  they  reveal 
him.  What  Whitman  wrote  regarding  Leaves  of 
Grass  applies  to  the  works  of  Kipling  : 

"  This  is  no  book, 
Who  touches  this  touches  a  man." 

The  impression  of  really  holding  conversation 
with  the  author  is  due  in  part  to  his  honesty  and 
earnestness.  It  is  attributable  quite  as  much  to  the 
style  itself.  The  construction  is  that  of  speech. 
Kipling  never  "  reads  like  a  book."      He  employs 

1  See  Athenceum,  April  18,  1 891. 


82  A   Kipling   Primer 

the  tongue  in  which  we  buy  and  sell,  and  make  love, 
and  confess  our  sins.  His  sentences  are  brief  and 
idiomatic  ;  the  order  of  the  words  is  seldom  inverted  ; 
there  are  few  parenthetical  clauses ;  the  words 
themselves  are  usually  short  and  prevailingly  Saxon. 

An  involved  style  is  generally  an  obscure  style. 
Kipling's  clearness  is  due  partly  to  his  natural  and 
effective  arrangement  of  words  ;  partly  also  to  his 
unerring   choice   of  the  word   that   fits. 

His  style  has  movement  as  well  as  clearness.  It 
sweeps  one  on  with  great  swiftness  to  the  story's 
climax.  There  is  no  halting  by  the  wayside  to 
pluck  an  epigram.  Mr.  Kipling  sees  his  work  too 
much  as  a  whole,  he  is  too  jealous  for  the  integrity 
of  his  central  impression,  to  distract  the  reader  with 
aphorisms.  Perhaps,  too,  he  considers  the  epigram- 
matic style  to  savor  of  pedantry,  as  witness  the 
following  quotation  from  one  of  the  Plain  Tales : 
" '  No  wise  man  has  a  policy,'  said  the  Viceroy. 
c  A  policy  is  the  blackmail  levied  on  the  Fool  by 
the  Unforeseen.  I  am  not  the  former,  and  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  latter.'  I  do  not  quite  see  what  this 
means,  unless  it  refers  to  an  insurance  policy.  Per- 
haps it  was  the  Viceroy's  way  of  saying, c  Lie  low.'  "  l 

Regarding  the    force  of    Kipling's   style,   I   have 

already    spoken.       Force,    next   to   sincerity,   is    its 

prevailing   note.      Concentration,  crispness,  realism, 

coherence,  suggestiveness,  all  these,  too,  are  part  of  our 

1  "  A  Germ  Destroyer." 


Mr.    Kipling's  Writings  83 

author's  equipment.  But  it  is  often  pointed  out  that 
he  has  the  defects  of  his  qualities.  His  virility,  we  are 
told,  sometimes  descends  into  coarseness,  his  realistic 
manner  into  slang,  his  swift  "  go  "  into  jerkiness  and 
journalese.  He  is  always  powerful,  he  is  not  always 
highly-bred.  In  his  passion  for  clearness  and  force 
he  sometimes  forgets  how  many  other  qualities  go  to 
make  up  a  finished  style.  The  subtle  rhythmical 
movement,  the  cadence,  the  pervasive  overtones 
which  mark  much  of  De  Quincey's  prose,  and  Cardi- 
nal Newman's,  and  Louis  Stevenson's,  these,  for  the 
most  part,  are  absent  from  the  author's  page. 

But  it  may  be  said  in  Kipling's  defence  that  the 
sort  of  verbal  incantation  which  imparts  almost  a 
sensuous  thrill  to  the  reader,  perhaps  seems  to  him 
essentially  insincere.  It  also  may  be  said  that  a 
highly  beautified  style  is  excluded  by  his  persistent 
aim  to  make  his  writings  as  much  like  spoken 
speech  as  he  can.  That  he  is  able,  moreover,  when 
it  suits  his  purpose,  to  write  paragraphs  where 
rhythm  is  a  marked  feature,  is  shown  in  not  a  few 
stories,  especially  in  narratives  put  into  the  mouths 
of  natives,  and  in  several  of  the  Jungle  tales. 

Kipling's  style,  however,  needs  no  apology.  His 
art  is  perfect  if  it  perfectly  achieve  its  purpose  ;  we 
never  should  pronounce  an  author's  method  defective 
till  we  have  inquired  what  he  aims  to  do.  Mr. 
Kipling  occasionally  shocks  us  with  his  coarseness. 
But  perhaps  we  need  to  be  shocked.      Granted   that 


84  A   Kipling  Primer 

he  violates  our  conventions.  It  does  us  good  to 
reexamine  the  ground  for  these  conventions.  Let 
us  admit  that  he  is  deficient  in  rhythm.  Rhythm  is 
wHat  we  ask  for  in  a  lullaby7"not  Frfa  battle-slogan 
or  an  alarm  of  fire.  The  man  who  strives  to  shake 
you  out  of  your  self-satisfaction,  and  to  nerve  you 
for  conflict  or  danger,  ought  hardly  to  be  quarrelled 
with  because  he  refuses  to  sing  you  to  sleep.  Kip- 
ling's message  is  not  for  the  ear,  but  for  the  emo- 
tions  and   the  will. 

Of  course  this  peremptory,  challenging  style  is 
not  universally  popular.  He  or  she  —  more  often 
she  —  whose  ideal  of  literature  is  completely  met  by 
the  elaborately  polite  while  beautiful  style  of  Ad- 
dison, whose  taste  is  unpleasantly  disturbed  by  Swift 
and  wholly  outraged  by  Carlyle,  —  such  a  reader 
will  certainly  shrink  from  the  brusqueness  of  these 
"  straight-flung  words  and  few.''  Kipling's  style  is 
not  custom-made.  Like  Whitman,  he  has  "  gone 
freely  with  powerful  uneducated  persons."  Readers 
who  look  for  evening  clothes  and  court  bows  —  who 
care  less  for  literary  manner  than  for  literary  man- 
ners—  will  cut  his  acquaintance  just  as  soon  as  he 
ceases  to  be  a  fashionable  fad. 

25.  Influence.  —  Is  Mr.  Kipling  a  classic  ? 
Who  knows,  or  cares  ?  His  fate  will  probably  be 
the  common  one  : 

"  Some  of  him  lived,  but  the  most  of  him  died 
(Evkg  as  you  and  I  !)  " 


Mr.    Kipling's  Writings  85 

The  permanency  of  his  fame  is  doubtless  Mr. 
Kipling's  least  concern.  Is  it  not  the  third-rate 
poet   who   sighs  with   Cowley  : 

"  What  shall  I  do  to  be  forever  known 
And  make  the  age  to  come  my  own  "  ? 

Time  takes  fine  revenges  on  all  such. 

But  whether  or  not  Mr.  Kipling  is  a  classic,  it 
cannot  be  disputed  that  he  is  a  force.  The  man 
who  has  created  a  new  respect  for  poetry,  who  has 
conquered  a  new  class  of  readers,  who  is  already 
quoted,  imitated,  parodied  in  every  English-speaking 
land,  who,  while  still  in  his  early  thirties,  influences 
the  policy  of  nations  and  marks  time  for  their  march- 
ing feet,  who  gathers  the  civilized  world  at  his  bed- 
side to  pray  for  his  recovery,  —  surely  this  man  is 
something  far  greater  than  the  occupant  of  a  literary 
pedestal  —  he  is  the  leader  and  friend  of  our  com- 
mon race. 

26.  Summary.  —  I  have  attempted  to  show  in 
this  chapter  on  what  grounds  Mr.  Kipling's  work 
may  properly  be  called  great ;  I  have  attempted  to 
trace  the  development  of  his  dramatic  genius  through 
three  stages  which  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  satiric, 
the  sympathetic,  and  the  spiritual ;  and  I  have  finally 
discussed  a  number  of  his  general  characteristics  in 
detail.  In  so  short  a  treatise  it  can  hardly  be  hoped 
that  anything  more  than  an  intelligent  outline  has 
been  furnished  the  student,  yet  the  writer  trusts  a 
few  things  have  been   made  clear  : 


86  A  Kipling   Primer 

1.  Mr.  Kipling  is  the  most  prominent  figure  in 
the  world  of  letters,  and  has  made  the  most  rapid  of 
modern  literary  reputations. 

2.  He  has  conquei^d  three  classes  :  the  literary 
class  who  read  for  style ;  the  average  reader  who 
reads  for  amusement ;  the  non-reading  class  who  are 
fascinated  by  his  familiarity  with  their  material 
world   of  commerce,  trade,  and   machinery. 

3.  He  is  a  great  political  force. 

4.  His  work  is  notable  for  power,  originality, 
range,  health,  and  sincerity. 

5.  Nature  is  to  him  simply  the  background  for 
the  play   of  strenuous   human   emotions. 

6.  His  philosophy  of  life  is  marked  by  vigor  and 
optimism. 

7.  His  temper  is  distinctly  masculine.  He  is  al- 
ways strong,  and  sometimes  coarse. 

8.  His  manner  is  realistic  ;   his  aim  idealistic. 

9.  His  forte  is  description,  and  he  is  a  master  of 
language. 

10.  His  characterization  is  not  always  good,  and 
is  never  of  the  highest  kind. 

11.  His  ability  to  invent  plots  seems  exhaustless, 
and  his  mastery  of  the  short-story  form  is  unrivalled 
in  contemporary  literature.  He  has  not,  however, 
been  especially  successful  in  writing  novels. 

12.  His  verse  is  brilliant  and  rhetorical,  and  has 
at  least  once  attained  the  "nobly  plain  manner" 
of  the   highest   poetry. 


CHAPTER.  THREE 

INDEX    TO    MR.    KIPLING'S    PRINCIPAL    WRITINGS 

American,  An.  {The  Seven  Seas. ,)  —  This  description 
of  the  typical  American  contains  much  wholesome  criti- 
cism. While  it  aims  to  be  just,  it  is  hardly  calculated  to 
flatter  national  vanity.  It  is  in  part  a  parody  on  Emer- 
son's Brabmay  but  it  is  much  longer  than  the  earlier  poem. 
A  sample  of  its  quality  may  be  had  from  the  next  to  the 
last  of  its  fourteen  stanzas  : 

"  Enslaved,  illogical,  elate, 

He  greets  th'  embarrassed  Gods,  nor  fears 
To  shake  the  iron  hand  of  Fate 
Or  match  with  Destiny  for  beers." 
«'  To  me  it  gives  a  sense  of  his  penetration  and  his 
grasp  that  nothing  else  does.      I  am  tempted  to  call  the 
piece  the  most   important  thing,   intellectually,  in  Mr. 
Kipling's  new  volume  of  The  Seven  Seas.''''  —  IV.  D. 
Howells. 
American   Notes.  —  This   series  of   letters  contributed 
to  a  newspaper  in   India    (the   Pioneer,    Allahabad),    was 
the    result    of   Mr.    Kipling's    American    tour    of    1889. 
Their  publication  in    book    form    by  a  New  York  house 
(1891)  was  unauthorized.      They  are  satiric  pictures  of 
society    in    the    United    States.      Marred     by    journalistic 
smartness  and  superficiality  and  by  very  evident  prejudice 
against  America,   but  entertaining  and    clever.      (See    the 
American  Bookman  for  April,   1898.) 
(*7) 


88  A   Kipling   Primer 

The  complete  series  of  letters  of  which  these  are  a 
part  were    published    in   the    Pioneer   under    the    title 
From    Sea    to  Sea,  and    have  this  year  (1899)  been 
republished  in  book  form   under    the  original    title  by 
Mr.     Kipling's     authorized     publishers,    Doubleday  & 
McClure  Company.      (See  From  Sea  to  Sea.) 
Amir's  Homily,  The.      (Life's  Handicap.)  —  A  thief, 
brought    to    trial     before    the    Amir,    avers    that    he    stole 
because  he  was  starving,  having  been  unable  to  find  work. 
The  despot  tells  him   that  he  lies,    "since   any  man  who 
will,  may  find  work  and   daily  bread."      The  magistrate 
then  relates  a  tale  of  his   "evil  days,"   when  he  himself 
was    starving.      He    refused    gifts,    asking   only   for  work. 
He  was  finally  successful.      Day  after  day  he   wrought  as 
a  coolie  on  a   daily  wage  of  four  annas.      Then   turning  to 
the  prisoner  he  commands  that  he  be  led  away  to  execution. 
.Among  the  Railway  Folk.      (See   From  Sea  to  Sea. ) 
/'  Anchor  Song.      {The    Seven    Seas.) — A    sailor-song 
first  published  as   Envoy   to    Many  Inventions,   and  subse- 
quently included  in  The  Seven  Seas.      It  has  a  rhythmical 
movement,  but  fairly  bristles  with  nautical  terms. 

"  A  magnificent  bit  of  long-syllable  versification."  — 
Academy. 
Angutivun  Tina.  — A  poem  following  "  Quiquern  "  in 
the  Second  Jungle  Book.      It   is   supposedly  a  free   transla- 
tion of  the    "Song  of  the  Returning  Hunter,"    as  the  Es- 
quimaux  sang  it  after  seal-spearing. 

Answer,  An.  {Ballads.) — The  truth  that  grief  and 
apparent  failure  are  justified  if  they  form  part  of  God's  pur- 
pose is  taught  in  this  parable  of  a  rose,  who,  tattered  and 
stem-broken,  complains  to  God,  and  receives  an  answer 
which  comforts  her  as  she  bows  her  head  to  die. 


Index  to  Writings  89 

Arrest  of  Lieutenant  Golightly,  The.  (Plain 
Tales.)  —  The  story  of  a  vain  man's  humiliation.  Go- 
lightly,  dressed  fastidiously,  is  caught  in  a  tremendous  rain- 
storm which  reduces  his  new  white  helmet  to  dough, 
covers  his  gaiters  with  mud,  and  causes  the  dye-stuffs  of 
suit,  tie,  and  hat-lining  to  run.  He  is  mistaken  for  a  de- 
serter for  whom  the  police  are  looking,  and  is  delivered  over 
to  the  authorities.  After  some  travelling  about  in  custody, 
and  much  struggling  and  profanity,  he  is  rescued  by  one  of 
his  majors  who  recognizes  the  dandy  officer  under  the  out- 
ward appearance  of  a  dirty  tramp. 

At  Howli  Thana.  (/»  Black  and  White.)  —  The 
native  who  relates  the  tale  has  been  dismissed  from  the 
Police  for  a  piece  of  rascality,  and  now  begs  the  Sahib  to 
take  him  into  his  employ  as  a  messenger.  The  demand 
for  an  explanation  of  his  conduct  leads  to  a  willing  admis- 
sion of  the  facts,  but  the  most  nonchalant  and  ingenious 
vindication  of  his  motive.  The  sketch  gives  us  much  in- 
sight into  the  strange  workings  of  the  Oriental  mind. 

At  the  End  of  the  Passage.  (Life's  Handicap.)  — 
The  health  of  a  young  assistant  engineer  at  a  lonely  Indian 
station  is  shattered  during  the  hot  season  by  sleeplessness 
and  pure  terror,  the  latter  resulting  from  phantoms  created 
by  his  feverish  and  disordered  brain.  The  doctor  offers 
him  a  testimonial  which  will  secure  him  leave  of  absence. 
He  refuses,  since  the  man  that  would  be  sent  to  take  his 
place  lacks  the  physique  to  endure  the  Plains,  and  would, 
moreover,  bring  with  him  his  delicate  wife  now  convales- 
cing in  Simla.  The  doomed  man,  therefore,  remains  and 
dies  at  his  post. 

At  the  Pit's  Mouth.      (  Under  the  Deodars.)  —  The 


90  A   Kipling   Primer 

place  is  Simla.  The  three  characters  are  known  as  "  A 
Man  and  his  Wife  and  a  Tertium  Quid."  The  man  is  in 
the  Plains  "  earning  money  for  his  wife  to  spend  on 
dresses,"  and  writing  her  daily.  The  wife  is  carrying  on 
a  violent  flirtation  with  the  Tertium  Quid.  The  affair  has 
reached  almost  the  point  of  scandal  when  it  is  interrupted 
by  a  tragedy.  The  two  are  riding  on  the  Himalayan- 
Thibet  road,  which  in  places  is  not  over  six  feet  wide, 
with  a  sheer  drop  into  the  valley  below  of  between  one 
thousand  and  two  thousand  feet,  when  the  man's  mare 
shies  at  a  log  of  wood,  and,  sinking  in  the  earth  loosened 
by  the  heavy  rains,  falls  with  her  rider  to  the  valley  below. 
"  When  he  [Kipling]  deals  in  natural  horror  (take 
*  At  the  Pit's  Mouth'  as  a  sample,  or  *  The  Other 
Man  '),  I  often  find  him  a  master."  — Francis  Adams 
i?i  Fortnightly. 
At  Twenty-two.  (/»  Black  and  White. .)  — An  old, 
blind  miner  has  married  a  pretty  young  wife  who  carries  on 
a  shameless  intrigue  with  a  collier  working  in  the  same 
gang  with  her  husband.  A  heavy  flood,  during  the  Rains, 
breaks  through  the  crust  of  earth  over  one  of  the  workings 
and  pours  into  the  main  galleries.  The  blind  man's  mar- 
vellous knowledge  of  the  mine,  born  of  thirty  years'  ex- 
perience, enables  him  to  rescue  his  own  gang  and  two 
others.  Among  the  saved  is  his  wife's  paramour.  The 
latter  repays  him  by  eloping  with  the  woman. 

"  For  skilful  presentment  in  a  few  bold  strokes  of  a 
strange  and  moving  scene,  it  would  be  hard  to  beat  the 
escape  from  the  flooded  mine  in  *  At  Twenty-two,'  or 
the  fanatical  riot  of  «  On  the  City  Wall. '  The  former 
story,  indeed,  is  a  gem  of  the  first  water."  —  Athe- 
naeum. 


Index   to  Writings  91 

Baa,  Baa,  Black  Sheep.  ( Wee  Willie  Winkie. )  — 
Two  children  of  Anglo-Indian  parents  are  committed  to 
the  care  of  an  aunt  in  England.  The  latter  is  an  unlovely 
woman,  who  has  some  affection  for  the  little  girl,  but  hates 
the  boy,  Punch,  and  subjects  him  to  a  series  of  petty  tor- 
tures professedly  designed  for  the  good  of  his  soul.  His 
childish  exaggerations  pronounced  to  be  lies,  he  is  finally 
forced  to  actual  deception  in  self-defence,  and  becomes 
sullen  and  suspicious.  After  five  years  the  parents  come 
to  claim  their  children,  discover  the  barbarous  treatment 
the  Black  Sheep  has  received  at  the  hands  of  Aunty  Rosa, 
and,  after  some  difficulty,  win  back  the  good  there  is  in  the 
boy's  nature  by  love  and  tact. 

"  A  strange  compound  of  work  at  first  and  second 
hand.      .      .      .      But  Punch  lives  with  an  intense  vital- 
ity,   and    here,    without  any  indiscretion,   we    may  be 
sure  that  Mr.    Kipling  has  looked  inside  his  own  heart 
and  drawn  from  memory.'"  —  Gosse. 
Back  to  the  Army  again.        ( The   Seven   Seas.)  — 
A   British  soldier  who  has  seen  several  years'    service  re- 
turns after  a  time  to  the  army,  professing  to  be   as  ignorant 
of  things  military  as  any  new  recruit,  but  he  fails  to  deceive 
the  sergeant.  .  It  is  evident  from  his  song  that    he  takes 
pleasure  in    coming  back,    and    pride    in   the  prospect    of 
"  learnin'    the  others   their  trade." 

Ballad  of  Boh  Da  Thone,  The.  (Ballads.)  — A 
gruesome  story  of  an  outlaw  chief  unsuccessfully  hunted 
down  by  an  Irish  company  in  the  "Black  Tyrone."  The 
captain  marries  and  settles  down,  for  the  time-being  forget- 
ful of  his  quest.  Meanwhile  a  native  servant  slays  the 
Boh  and  sends  his  head  by  mail  to  the  captain.  The 
latter  opens  the  package  at  breakfast,  and  the  hideous  Thing 


92  A   Kipling   Primer 

rolls  out  on  the  table.  The  bride  faints.  A  little  Irish 
Kathleen,  born  shortly  afterward,  bears  the  Boh's  head  as 
a  birthmark.  JX^^\ 

Ballad  of  East  and  West,  The.  (Ballads.}  — A 
story  of  magnanimity  to  a  fallen  foe,  and  of  the  appreciation 
of  bravery  even  among  enemies: 

"  There  is  neither  East  nor  West,  Border  nor  Breed,  nor 

Birth, 
When  two  strong  men  stand  face  to  face,  tho'  they  come 

from  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

'«  One  of  the  greatest  pieces  of  epic  narrative  which  is 
to  be  found  in  our  literature.'''  —  Saturday  Review. 

"  Mr.    Kipling's    poetical  masterpiece."  —  Critic, 
1892. 

"Worthy  to    stand  by  the  border    ballads     of   Sir 
Walter  Scott." — Spectator. 

"A  thing  to  stir  the    blood    like    a  trumpet."  — 
Academy. 
Ballad   of  the    "Bolivar,"   The.      (Ballads.) — A 
triumphant  song  of  seven  drunken  English  sailors  who  had 
brought  their  half-wrecked  vessel  through   a  terrific   storm 
"safe  across  the  bay." 
v  y       Ballad  of  the  "  Clampherdown,"  The.     (Ballads.') 
—  The  "  Clampherdown,"  an   Jinglish  war-ship,  engages 
with  a  hostile  cruiser,  and  is  badly  disabled,  but  when  the 
enemy  demands  the  captain's  sword,  he  refuses  to  surrender, 
and,  being  then  at  close  quarters,  commands  that  the  cruiser 
be  boarded.      The  latter  is   cleared  from  end  to  end,  and, 
while   the  war-ship  sinks,  her  crew  stands  out   "  to  sweep 
the  sea"  on  the  captured  vessel. 

Ballad    of    the    King's   Jest,    The.        (Ballads.) — - 


Index  to  Writings  93 

Unsought  counsel  is  not  welcome  at  court.      A   gossiping 

youth  wins  an  Oriental  king's  anger  by  warning  him  of  the 

reported  advance   of  the   Russians,  and   is   placed  in  a  tree 

to  await  and  give  word  of  their  coming.      He  is  kept  there, 

guarded  by  bayonets,  till  he  dies  of  starvation  and  madness. 

"The  inimitable  ballad  of  the    *  King's  Jest.'  "  — 

^     Saturday  Review. 

\y     Ballad  of  the  King's  Mercy,   The.      {Ballads.}  — 

A  story  of  an  Oriental  despot's  arbitrary  and  cruel  conduct, 

which  his  court  flatterers  professed  to  regard  merciful. 

Bank  Fraud,  A.  {Plain  Tales.} — The  manager  of 
an  Indian  bank  has  for  accountant  a  conceited  and  peevish 
fellow  who  finally  breaks  down  with  consumption.  The 
directors  appoint  a  successor,  but  the  manager,  seeing  the 
necessity  for  keeping  up  the  spirits  of  his  employe  if  he 
would  prolong  his  life,  not  only  cares  for  him  and  uncom- 
plainingly receives  his  ungrateful  fault-finding,  but  invents  a 
series  of  letters  from  the  directors,  praising  the  sick  man's 
work  and  promising  increased  pay.  The  invalid's  salary 
is  regularly  paid  him  from  the  manager's  own  pocket,  but 
the  man  dies  at  last  in  the  presence  of  his  benefactor. 
t  /  Bell— Buoy,  The. — A  poem  of  nine  stanzas  in 
Mr  C lure's,  February,  I  ^97.  This  highly  imaginative 
song  is  given  us  in  the  supposed  words  of  the  bell-buoy. 
\y  Belts.  {Ballads.)  — The  story  of  a  Dublin  street  row 
between  an  Irish  regiment  and  a  body  of  English  cavalry 
which  had  a  tragic  ending. 

"  We  went  away  like  beaten  dogs,  an'  down  the  street 

we  bore  him, 
The  poor  dumb  corpse  that  couldn't  tell  the  bhoys  were 
sorry  for  him." 


94  A   Kipling   Primer 


Bertran      and      Bimi.        {Life's     Handicap.*)  —  Hans 

Breitmann,  the  German  orchid   collector  who  tells   also  the 

tale  of  Reingelder  (g.v. ),  relates   the  story.      Bertran   is  a 

French  naturalist  and  Bimi  his  pet  orang-outang.      Bertran, 

who  has  had   Bimi   twelve  years,   marries.      The  beast  is 

jealous  of  the  woman  and  kills  her.      Bertran,  in  return,  kills 

the  orang-outang,  but  in  the  unequal  struggle  is  himself  slain. 

"  The  horrible  story  of   *  Bertran  and  Bimi,'  though 

its  power  cannot  be  denied,   is  a    kind    of   thing    that 

ought  never  to  have   been  written.      .      .      .      This  is 

nightmare  literature. " '  —  Edinburgh  Review. 

"  '  Bertran   and    Bimi '  is   detestable,   and   is  not  in 
the  least  saved  by  being  extremely  cleverly  written.' "  — 
Spectator. 
Beyond     the     Pale.      {Plain     Tales.)  —  Every     man 
should   keep   to    his  own  caste.      Trejago,  an    Englishman, 
didn't,  and   his   love  intrigue    with   Bisesa,  a   pretty  Hindu 
widow  of  fifteen,  resulted  only  in  sorrow  to  himself  and  to 
her.      When  the  affair  was  discovered  by  her  relatives,  bar- 
barous   punishment  was    inflicted  on   Bisesa,  and   the  man 
himself  was  wounded.      Thenceforth  the  girl   was  lost  to 
him  completely. 

Big  Drunk  Draf',  The.  {Soldiers  Three.) — The 
"big  drunk  draP  "  were  the  "  scourin's  an'  rinsin's  an' 
Divil's  lavin's  av  the  Ould  Rig'mint,"  who  were  "  knock- 
in'  red  cinders  out  av  ivry thing  an'  ivrybody."  The  "  little 
orf'cer  bhoy  "  who  commanded  them  was  unequal  to  the 
situation  until  Mulvaney,  who  tells  the  story,  gave  him 
counsel  and  active  assistance  in  restoring  order.  The  ring- 
leaders in  the  disturbance  were  "pegged  out,"  and  the  rest 
of  the  men  driven  to  their  tents.  From  that  day  the  "  little 
orf'cer  bhoy  "  had  his  men  in  complete  control. 


Index  to  Writings  95 

Bill  'Awkins.  {The  Seven  Seas.) — Tommy  wants 
to  find  Bill  'Awkins  and  settle  with  him  for  having  taken  his 
girl  out  walking,  but  when  he  meets  the  man  he  suddenly 
changes  his  mind, 
t^"  Birds  of  Prey"  March.  {The  Seven  Seas.)  — 
The  Tommy  who  sings  this  song  on  departing  for  the 
front  seems  to  have  little  hope  of  returning.  He  reminds 
us  that 

"  The  jackal  an'  the  kite 

'Ave  an  'ealthy  appetite," 

though  he  gives  a  hearty  cheer  on  top  of  the  information. 

Bisara  of  Pooree,  The.  {Plain  Tales.)  —  The 
Bisara  of  Pooree  is  a  love-charm  which,  if  stolen,  possesses 
potent  influence  for  good.  A  man  steals  it  and  then  obtains 
the  consent  of  a  woman,  vastly  his  superior,  whom  he  has  long 
wished  to  marry,  but  who  has  before  repelled  his  advances. 
The  charm  is  stolen  from  him  in  turn,  and  his  fiancee  at 
once  suffers  a  revulsion  of  feeling  and  dismisses  him. 

Bitters  Neat.  (Added  to  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills 
in  the  Outward  Bound  edition.) — A  girl  falls  in  love 
with  an  excellent  but  dull  fellow  who,  engrossed  in  his 
business  and  unaccustomed  to  observe  women,  fails  to  see 
it.  She  refuses  meanwhile,  greatly  to  her  aunt's  anger,  a 
much  more  "eligible"  man.  The  girl's  pitiful  little  secret 
gets  out,  and,  sensitive  to  the  gossip  around  her,  she  leaves 
India  and  returns  to  England. 

Black  Jack.  {Soldiers  Three.)  —  A  gang  of  soldiers 
who  conspire  to  kill  an  unpopular  officer  with  Mulvaney's 
rifle  and  then  make  it  appear  that  the  owner  committed  the 
crime  are  outwitted  by  the  Irishman,  who  has  chanced  to 
overhear  the  whole  plot.      He  finds  the  rifle  loaded  and 


96  A   Kipling   Primer 

ready.  "I  was  hot  wid  rage  against  thim  all,  an'  I 
worried  the  bullet  out  wid  my  teeth  as  fast  as  I  cud,  the 
room  bein'  empty.  Then  I  tuk  my  boot  an'  the  clanin'- 
rod  and  knocked  out  the  pin  av  the  fallin' -block."  The 
sequel  shows  how  the  officer  was  saved,  the  man  on  whom 
the  lot  had  fallen  to  do  the  shooting  was  himself  wounded, 
Mulvaney  vindicated,  and  poetic  justice  dealt  out  generally. 

Bread  upon  the  Waters.  (  Day's  Work. )  —  McPhee, 
Scotch  engineer  of  the  "  Breslau,"  was  discharged  after 
twenty  years'  service  for  refusing  to  risk  the  vessel  on 
a  new  timing.  A  rival  steamship  line  gave  him  employ- 
ment on  the  "  Kite,"  a  tramp  freighter.  The  "  Breslau  " 
soon  after  broke  down  when  on  a  voyage,  and  was  towed  to 
port.  Thenceforth  her  management  were  for  retrench- 
ment. Their  economy  extended  to  risking  a  trip  on  the 
"Grotkau,"  a  badly-built  freighter  with  a  seven-inch  crack 
on  the  tail-shaft.  The  "Kite"  followed,  creeping  up  by 
night  and  falling  away  by  day,  until  the  "  Grotkau  "  was 
seen  signalling  for  help.  A  passing  liner  rescued  her  crew, 
but,  being  a  Government  mail  steamer,  was  forbidden  to  tow. 
How  through  McPhee' s  ingenuity  and  daring  this  fortune  fell 
to  the  "  Kite,"  and  how  the  Scotchman  received  enough  of 
the  money-reward  to  make  him  wealthy,  is  related  by  the 
hero  of  the  tale  himself,  and  loses  nothing  in  the  recital. 

Bridge-Builders,  The.  (Day's  Work.) — The  romance 
of  a  flood.  Findlayson,  of  the  Public  Works  Department, 
had  for  three  years  been  engaged  in  constructing  a  huge 
bridge  over  the  Ganges.  When  the  work  was  within  a 
few  months  of  completion,  "Mother  Gunga "  rose  in 
flood,  as  if  angry  at  this  man's  outrage  upon  her,  and  all 
but  swept   the   structure   away.      The   engineer  refused  to 


Index  to  Writings  97 

leave  his  post  or  to  eat  food.  As  a  preventive  against 
fever  he  consented  to  take  the  opium  pills  thrust  upon  him 
by  his  native  servant,  but,  unused  to  the  drug,  was  thrown 
into  a  wild  dream,  in  which  the  gods  of  India  conversed. 
Gunga's  prayer  for  vengeance  on  the  bridge-builders  is 
denied  by  Krishna  :  "They  all  come  to  thee  at  the  last. 
What  need  to  slay  them  now  ?  Have  pity,  mother,  for  a 
little, — and  it  is  only  for  a  little." 

"'The  Bridge-Builders1  has  in  its  conception  and 
realization  astonishing  affinities  with  Zola.  The  bridge 
dominates  the  narrative  in  symbolic  grandeur,  the 
swarming  lives  and  the  accumulated  material  ever  find- 
ing metamorphosis  in  the  growth  of  the  monster  struct- 
ure. The  dramatic  concentration  is  perfect. 
The  swiftness  imparted  is  unsurpassable. '"',  — L.  Zang- 
will  (  Cosmopolitan ,  1899). 

"The  spanning  of  the  Ganges  is  not  merely  an 
engineering  achievement  :  it  stands  for  a  type  of  the 
losing  battle  which  the  old  gods  of  the  East  fight  against 
new  and  spiritual  forces.'" — Macmillatfs  Magazine. 

"  *  The  Bridge-Builders'  will,  if  we  are  not  greatly 
mistaken,  rank  among  the  masterpieces  of  this  genera- 
tion. " —  Spectator. 

Broken-Link  Handicap,  The.  {Plain  Tales.)  — 
Kipling  reveals  in  this  story  as  intimate  a  knowledge  of 
horse-racing  as  he  shows  of  polo  in  "The  Maltese  Cat." 
At  the  Chedputter  races,  the  famous  Shackles,  heretofore 
invincible,  is  beaten,  through  a  clever  trick  played  upon 
Brunt,  the  little  Australian  jockey.  The  way  in  which 
the  riding-boy's  nerve  is  shaken  and  the  race  lost  is  told 
with   much   originality  and  spirit. 

Bronckhorst    Divorce-Case,    The.      {Plain    Tales.) 


98  A   Kipling  Primer 

—  Bronckhorst  treated  his  wife  like  a  brute.  His  crown- 
ing insult  was  his  institution  of  proceedings  on  the  criminal 
count  against  one  Biel,  who  had  been  somewhat  attentive 
to  Mrs.  Bronckhorst.  It  was  Strickland  (see  "  Miss  You- 
ghal's  Sais")who  discovered  that  the  plaintiff  had  fabri- 
cated false  evidence  and  who  made  this  fact  apparent  to  the 
court.  After  being  acquitted,  Biel  cut  Bronckhorst  into 
ribbons  with  a  whip.  But  his  wife  wept  over  him  and 
nursed  him  back  to  life  again. 

Brugglesmith.  {Many  Inventions.) — Describes  the 
author's  unpleasant  relations  with  a  drunken  rascal  whom 
he  calls  Brugglesmith — this  name  being  the  man's  pro- 
nunciation of  Brook  Green,  Hammersmith,  which  he  gives 
as  his  address.  A  wild  night  of  police  courts,  ambulances, 
officers,  narrow  escapes  from  drowning,  and  a  thousand 
shifts  whereby  the  young  man  in  evening  clothes  tries  to 
rid  himself  of  his  effusive  companion,  but  to  no  purpose, 
unite  to  make  up  a  broadly  comic  if  not  farcical  story. 
"  Represents  the  low- water  mark  of  his  genius."  — 
Prof.  Harry  Thurston  Peck,  in  Bookman. 

"It  is  amazing  to  find  in  this  volume  such  stuff  as 
'  Brugglesmith.'  "  —  Academy,  1893. 
Brushwood  Boy,  The.  (Day's  Work.)  — A  fanciful 
tale,  reminding  one  of  Du  Maurier's  Peter  Ibbetson. 
From  early  childhood  George  Cottar  had  mysterious  dreams 
which  invariably  connected  themselves  with  certain  downs 
bordering  on  a  strange  sea.  His  rides  and  voyages  had 
always  the  same  starting-place  —  a  brushwood  pile  near  the 
beach.  And  his  constant  companion  was  a  girl  who  re- 
tained the  same  personality,  though  she  grew  in  years. 
George  developed  from  a  visionary  boy  into  an  athletic  col- 


Index  to  Writings  99 

legian  and  a  gallant  army  officer,  but  in  his  dreams  he  was 
ever  the  Brushwood  Boy.  He  returned  to  England  and 
met  society.  Finally  he  saw  a  girl  strikingly  like  his  sleep- 
companion.  It  proved  to  be  she,  and  her  dreams  were 
found  to  have  matched  his  own  in  all  respects.  As  they 
had  loved  one  another  in  fancy  they  came  to  do  so  in 
reality. 

"  Exquisite    in    poetic     spirituality."  — McClure's 

{editorial). 

"  '  The  Brushwood  Boy'  is  not  a  particularly  good 

story,  but  it  is  the  clearest  sketch  we  have  seen  of  Mr. 

Kipling's  ideal  young  man,  —  his  Galahad  up  to  date, 

—  who  keeps  himself  clean  in  mind  and  body,  and  loves 
only  when  his  appointed  time  comes,  once  and  for  all." 

—  Spectator. 

Bubbling  Well  Road.  (Life's  Handicap.)  — The 
author  loses  his  way  in  a  patch  of  ft  plumed  jungle  grass, 
.  from  ten  to  twenty  feet  high,  and  from  three  to  four 
miles  square."  In  the  heart  of  the  patch,  whither  he  has 
gone  with  the  purpose  of  boar  hunting,  he  comes  upon  the 
bubbling  well,  whence  strange  laughter  and  a  devilish  echo 
emanate,  and  where  mysterious  shapes  appear.  The  natives 
believe  the  vicinity  to  be  full  of  devils  and  ghosts.  The 
adventurer's  escape  to  open  country  is  efFected  through  the 
aid  of  a  one-eyed  priest,  not  the  least  remarkable  of  his  dis- 
coveries. 

By  the  Hoof  of  the  Wild  Goat  up— tossed.  —  The 
first  line  of  the  lyric  preceding  "  To  be  Filed  for  Reference  " 
(q.v.),  and  purporting  to  be  taken  "  from  the  unpublished 
papers  of  Mcintosh  Jellaludin." 

By  Word  of  Mouth.  (Plain  Tales.)  —  Not  long 
after    Dumoise,    a    civil    surgeon,    had    lost    his   wife    by 


ioo  A   Kipling   Primer 

typhoid,  his  bearer  in  great  excitement  reported  that  he 
had  seen  the  Memsabib,  who  had  said,  "  Give  my  salaams 
to  the  Sahib,  and  tell  him  that  I  shall  meet  him  next 
month  at  Nuddea."  Nuddea  was  over  twelve  hundred 
miles  south  of  his  station.  Was  it  a  coincidence  that  the 
doctor  was  unexpectedly  transferred  to  Nuddea  on  special 
duty  ?  There  was  an  outbreak  of  cholera  there.  Soon 
after  his  arrival  he  succumbed  to  it,  and  thus  joined  the 
Memsabib. 

*'  Captains  Courageous  "  :   A  Story  of  the  Grand 
Banks.      [New  York  and  London,  1897.      Before  publica- 
tion in  book  form  by  the  Century  Company  it  had  appeared 
serially  in  McClure's  Magazine.      The  title  of  the  story  is 
evidently  quoted    from   the    old    English   ballad  of  "  Mary 
Ambree,"  Reliques    of  Ancient   English    Poetry,    Vol.    II. 
("When  captaines  couragious,"  etc.,  p.  230.)]     Harvey 
Cheyne,  spoiled  child  of  an  American   millionaire,  overbal- 
ances himself  while  leaning  in  a  fit  of  seasickness  over  the 
deck  railing  of  an   American  liner,  and   is   swept   into  the 
ocean.      He  is  picked  up  by  a  dory  from  a  Gloucester  fish- 
ing-schooner, "  We're  Here,"  commanded  by  Disko  Troop, 
a  man  of  much  shrewdness  and  rude  strength  of  character. 
The  latter  declines  to  believe  Harvey's  tales  of  his  father's 
wealth,  and  instead  of  landing  this  "most  unlicked  cub  in 
fiction  ' '  at  New  York,  as  the  boy  desires,  keeps  him  on  the 
schooner  until   the  close  of  the  fishing-season,  paying  him 
ten  dollars  a  month  for  working  with  the  other  deck  hands. 
The  rough   discipline,  sometimes    enforced   with    the   rope- 
end,  which   Harvey  receives,  proves   to    be  his  moral  and 
phvsical  salvation.      When  the  season's  end  restores  him  to 
his  parents,  who  have  been  heart-broken   over  his  supposed 


Index  to  Writings  ior 

death,  he  is  a  sturdy,  self-respecting  young  fellow  who  has 
learned  the  lessons  of  industry  and  obedience.  His  father 
rewards  Troop  by  giving  his  son,  Dan,  a  chance  to  rise  as 
a  sailor.  "  Captains  Courageous  "  is  a  boy's  book  ;  that  is 
to  say  (in  the  words  of  the  Edinburgh  Review*),  "  it  is  a 
fine  and  healthy  book  for  boys  of  all  ages  from  eight  to 
eighty."  Novel  in  the  strict  sense  it  is  not,  nor  does  it  aim 
to  be.  It  has,  however,  been  justly  called  "  the  most 
vivid  and  picturesque  treatment  of  New  England  fishermen 
that  has  yet  been  made."  {Atlantic  Monthly,  December, 
1897.)  Its  plot  is  slight  ;  its  incidents  are  neither  numer- 
ous nor  exciting  ;  its  characterization  for  the  most  part  is 
sketchy.  Description  is  the  book's  strong  point.  Whether 
Mr.  Kipling  knows  all  regions  of  the  seven  seas  equally 
well  may  be  doubted,  but  he  unquestionably  knows  the 
Grand  Banks.  The  very  breath  and  swing  of  the  ocean  is 
in  the  tale,  and  a  bewildering  amount  of  nautical  lore  of  all 
sorts.  Moreover,  the  book,  while  wholly  without  didacti- 
cism, is  profoundly  moral.  It  preaches  in  every  line  the 
author's   favorite   Gospel  of  Work. 

"  A  series  of  literary  sea-pieces  constitute  the  value 

of  the   book  from   an    artistic  point  of  view."  — Athe- 

nceum. 

"  One  of  the  best  things  its  author   has    done."  — 

Edinburgh  Review. 

"  The  worst  a  hostile  critic  could  say  of  *  Captains 

Courageous'    would    be    to  call    it    a    glorified    boy's 

book."  — London  Times. 

"  Never  before  has  Mr.  Kipling   made    more  living 

characters,  and   never   before  has   he  described  so  well 

the  vast  waste  spaces  of  the    sea.    .    .    ,    The  book  is,  in 

truth,  a  sea-book,  and  from  first   to  last  the  lap  of  the 


IC2  .A   Kipling   Primer 


waves  against  a  boat's  side  and  the  humming  of,  waters 
are  in  our  ears.  '  Captains  Courageous '  is  as  much 
the  book  of  the  sea  as  Venice  is  her  city.  ...  Its  moral 
is  beyond  praise,  for  it  teaches  the  great  lesson  that 
obedience  and  the  power  to  take  orders  and  execute 
them  loyally  and  without  any  false  sense  of  pride  is  es- 
sential to  a  well-ordered  and  happy  life. 
Throughout  the  book  Mr.  Kipling's  style  and  treatment 
of  his  subject  are  masterly.  .  .  .  Not  a  word  in  the 
book  is  out  of  tone.'"  — Spectator. 

'*  A  great  story,  great  in  its  massive  simplicity,  great 
in  its  vital  interest,  its  wealth  of  humor,  its  lessons  of 
humanity  and  democracy,  its  pathos  and  its  nobility." 
—  Nathan  Haskell  Dole  in  Book  Buyer. 

"  Like  Robinson  Crusoe,  Treasure  /stand,  and 
one  or  two  other  first-rate  books  of  adventure,  it  will 
give  almost  as  much  pleasure  to  grown-up  people  as  to 
boys.  .  .  .  The  interest  of  the  book  does  not  depend 
by  any  means  entirely  on  the  story,  but  almost  equally 
on  the  vivid  descriptions  of  the  cod-fishing  fleet  and  its 
industry. ' '  —  Literature. 

Adverse  judgments  are  expressed  by  the  editor  of  the 
(American)  Bookman,  who  finds  the  book  '«  meaning- 
less" ("  Mr.  Kipling  at  the  Crossroads,"  Bookman, 
December,  1898),  and  by  an  anonymous  reviewer  in  the 
Atlantic,  who  says  of  the  story,  after  praising  its  health 
of  atmosphere  and  serenity  of  manner,  "  '  Captains 
Courageous '  is  badly  wrought  and  is  less  than  the 
measure  of  his  (Kipling's)  power."  ('<  Notable  Recent 
Novels,"   Atlantic,  December,  1897.) 

Cells.  {Ballads.*)  — The  song  of  a  Tommy  who  is 
confined  to  "  the  Clink"  for  "a  thundering  drink,  and 
blacking    the   corporal's  eye."      He  has  one  consolation  : 


Index  to  Writings  103 

"  I  left  my  mark  on  the  corporal's  face,  and   I  think  he'll 
keep  it  there  !  " 

Children  of  the  Zodiac.  (Many  Inventions.')  — 
The  children  of  the  Zodiac  are  the  Ram,  the  Bull,  the  Lion, 
the  Twins,  and  the  Girl  (Virgo).  The  principal  actors  are 
Leo  and  the  Girl,  who,  after  leading  the  life  of  gods,  come 
to  share  earth  conditions,  and  learn  the  mystery  of  love  and 
the  meaning  of  death.  Though  the  setting  of  the  story  is 
fanciful,  the  motif  is  Kipling's  favorite  one  :  Each  must  do 
the  day's  work  assigned  him  with  brave  patience.  Or,  in 
the  concluding  words  of  the  allegory,  "  What  comes  or 
does  not   come,    we  must  not  be  afraid." 

"  In  *  Children  of  the  Zodiac  '  there  is  a  defence  and 
justification  of  preaching  such  as  St.  Paul  himself  might 
say  amen  to."  —  IV.  B.  Parker,  Public  Opinion. 

For  adverse  estimates  of  the    story    see    Academy, 

July   1,    1893  ;  also  Athenczum,  July  8,    1893.      The 

latter  review  finds  it  obscure  and  wearisome,  and  thinks 

y      it  the  "one  failure  in  the  whole  collection." 

i^   Chil's  Song.        (Second    Jungle    Book.)   —  A  poem 

following  f<  Red  Dog  ' '  in  the  Second  Jungle  Book.     It  is  the 

song  which    Chil    sang  "  as  the  kites  dropped  down  one 

after  another  to  the  river-bed,"  when  the  great  fight  with 

the  pack  of  dholes  was  finished. 

Cholera  Camp.  (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  A  song  full  of 
rude  pathos.  There  is  cholera  in  the  camp,  with  a  death- 
roll  of  ten  a  day. 

City  of  Dreadful  Night,  The.  (Life's  Handi- 
cap. )  —  A  description  of  a  fierce  night  in  August  at  Lahore. 
Crowded  roof-tops,  Muezzin's  midnight  call,  unburied 
corpses,  snoring  kites,  lean  dogs,  sleeping  lepers,  scudding 
jackals,  —  all  are  photographed  unforgettably. 


104  A   Kipling   Primer 

"As  a  description  it  is  wonderfully  vivid  and  con- 
vincing. ' '  —  Spectator. 

"  A  truly  wonderful  piece  of  word-painting.1 '  — 
Athenmtm. 

"  Never  was  there  a  more  astonishing  picture."  — 
Blackwoods. 
/         (See  From  Sea  to  Sea.) 

Cleared.  {Ballads. )  —  An  invective  against  certain 
men  high  in  official  life  who  instigated  a  notorious  shooting 
affair  in  Ireland,  which  had  wide-reaching  political  effects. 
The  whitewashing  Commission  "  cleared  "  these  "  honor- 
able gentlemen  ' '  from  the  stigma  of  complicity  in  the  crime, 
but  an  honest  Englishman  holds  them  to  be  worse  even 
than   the  assassins. 

"  As  a  piece  of  deadly,  logical,  impassioned  invec- 
tive, *  Cleared'  may  scarce  be  matched." — ATational 
Observer. 

"  Rings    false  from  first  line  to  last.1'  — Francis 
Adams  in  Fortnightly. 
Come  Back  to  me,  Beloved,  or  I  die! — The  refrain 
of  Bisesa's  song,  which  begins, 

"  Alone  upon  the  housetops,  to  the  North 

I  turn  and  watch  the  lightning  in  the  sky." 
(See  "  Beyond  the  Pale,"  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills.) 
Conference  of  the  Powers,  A.  (  Many  Inventions.  )  — 
Mr.  Eustace  Cleever,  novelist,  falls  into  the  company  of 
three  young  fellows  home  from  the  army.  This  self-com- 
placent "  decorator  and  colorman  in  words  "  has  never 
been  ten  miles  from  fellow- Englishmen,  and  has  been  wont 
to  regard  warfare  as  unnatural  if  not  essentially  vulgar. 
Always  ready  to  draw  out  men  in  search  of  "material," 
he  encourages  the  youths  to  talk   of  raids  and  battles.      He 


Index  to  Writings  105 

ends  by  learning  a  good  many  things,  and  confesses  that  he 
has  "been  moving  in  worlds  not  realized." 

Consequences.  {Plain  Tales.')  —  Celebrates  Mrs. 
Hauksbee's  cleverness,  and  the  audacity  of  one  Tarrion, 
who,  with  that  lady's  help,  obtained  possession  of  secret 
information  useful  to  the  Government,  and,  armed  there- 
with, demanded  and  received   a  fat  appointment. 

Conundrum  of  the  Workshops,  The.  {Ballads.)  — 
A  poem  expressing  scorn  for  merely  professional  critics,  — 
the  slaves  of  form  and  tradition,  —  who  insist  on  asking 
about  work  which  they  admit  to  be  clever,  striking,  or 
human,  "  Yes,  but  is  it  art  ?  " 

"  A  charming  satire.1'  — Acadeviy. 

Conversion  of  Aurelian  McGoggin,  The.  {Plain 
Tales.)  — McGoggin  was  "  all  head,  no  physique,  and  a 
hundred  theories,"  which  latter  he  exploited  on  all  occa- 
sions. He  worked  nine  hours  a  day  in  the  Indian  summer, 
and  finally  collapsed.  The  break-down  took  the  form  of 
aphasia,  which  caused  loss  of  speech  and  memory.  After 
three  months  of  rest  he  recovered,  but  he  was  cured  of  his 
intellectual  conceit.  Something  had  at  last  happened  which 
he  couldn't  understand. 

Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  The.  {Life's  Handicap.) 
—  Mulvaney  tells  of  his  first  meeting  with  Dinah  Shadd, 
and  of  the  progress,  not  always  smooth-running,  of  the 
courtship.  After  his  engagement  Judy  Sheehy  inveigles 
him  into  drunken  protestations  of  affection,  and  afterwards 
tries  to  prove  that  he  is  her  "promised  man."  In  this 
plot  she  is  ably  backed  up  by  Mother  Sheehy,  a  broadly 
comic  character,  who,  when  she  finds  that  Mulvaney 
remains  true  to   Dinah,    curses  both    him  and    his  sweet- 


io6  A   Kipling   Primer 


heart    with    Irish    volubility.       But    Dinah   Shadd    remains 
constant. 

"  A  little  masterpiece."  —  Francis  Ada?ns  in  Fort- 
nightly. 

"The  one  story  in  the  book  [L.  H.]  admirable 
from  first  to  last  is  «The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd.1  " 

—  Lionel  Johnson  in  Academy. 

Cupid's  Arrows.  (Plain  Tales.) — A  beautiful  girl 
without  fortune  was  shown  attention  by  a  very  ugly  but 
rich  commissioner  in  Simla.  Mamma  was  overjoyed,  but 
daughter,  while  flattered,  vastly  preferred  young  Cubbon, 
a  handsome  dragoon  with  no  prospects.  The  commissioner 
arranged  an  archery  tournament  for  ladies,  with  a  diamond- 
studded  bracelet  as  prize.  All  could  see  that  the  bracelet 
was  a  gift  to  the  girl,  who  was  the  champion  archer  there- 
abouts, and  that  acceptance  carried  with  it  the  heart  and 
hand  of  the  great  man.  The  contest  came.  The  girl 
deliberately  shot  wild  and  lost  the  prize,  mamma  wept 
with  shame  and  disappointment,  and  the  boy  carried  the 
real  prize  away  after  all. 

"The  archery  contest  in  '  Cupid's  Arrows  '  needs 
only  to  be  compared  with  a  similar  scene  in  Daniel 
Deronda  to  show  how  much  more  closely  Mr.  Kip- 
ling keeps  his  eye  on  details  than   George   Eliot  did." 

—  Edmund  Gosse. 

\  ,  Danny  Deever.  (Ballads.) — A  powerfully  realistic 
ballad.  Danny  Deever  was  hanged  in  the  presence  of  his 
regiment  for  having  shot  a  sleeping  comrade. 

Edmund  C.  Stedman  speaks  of  "  the  originality  and 
weird  power"  of  this  poem,  and  Lionel  Johnson 
pronounces  it  in  the  Academy  "the  most  poetical,  in 
the  sense  of  being  the  most  imaginative  and  heightened 
in  expression,"  of  the  Barrack-Room  Ballads. 


Index  to   Writings  107 

>arzee's  Chaunt.  —  Verses  following  «  Rikki-Tikki- 
Tavi  "  in  the  Jungle  Book.  The  song  is  sung  by  Darzee, 
the  tailor-bird,  in  honor  of  the  mongoose,  Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, 
who  has  killed  the  cobras. 

/  Daughter  of  the  Regiment,  The.  {Plain  Tales.)' 
—  Miss  Jhansi  McKenna  was  plain,  ill  dressed,  and  Irish, 
but  she  was  the  daughter  of  the  regiment  and  the  pride  of 
B  Company.  Mulvaney  tells  the  story  of  the  cholera 
scourge,  and  the  heroic  efforts  made  on  behalf  of  the  men 
by  Ould  Pummeloe,  Jhansi's  mother,  and  by  Jhansi  herself, 
then  a  little  girl,  who  followed  the  old  woman,  carrying 
water  to  the  boys.  Ould  Pummeloe  died,  but  Jhansi  re- 
mained in  the  regiment.  Mulvaney  was  her  self-appointed 
champion  and  protector,  and  it  was  he  who  brought  about 
her  marriage  with  a  corporal. 
/^Dedication  to  the  City  of  Bombay.  {The  Seven 
Seas. )  —  The  opening  poem  in  The  Seven  Seas,  giving 
expression  to  the  author's  pride  in  his  native  city,  — 
"  For  I  was  born  in  her  gate, 
Between  the  palms  and  the  sea, 

Where  the  world-end  steamers  wait." 
[/''Dedicatory     Poem.      {Ballads.)  —  These    lines,    ad- 
dressed to  Wolcott  Balestier,  touch  almost  the  high-water 
mark  of  Kipling's  work.      They  have  no  title,  but  will  be 
recalled  from  their  opening  verse: 

"  Beyond  the  path  of  the  outmost  sun,  through  utter  dark- 
ness hurled." 

For  a  detailed  analysis,  see  the  N.  Y.  Independent, 
March  30,  1899.  An  adverse  critical  estimate  of  the 
poem  may  be  found  in  Mr.  Lionel  Johnson's  review 
of  Barrack-Room  Ballads  in  the  London  Academy. 


108  A  Kipling  Primer 

Departmental  Ditties.  —  (Published,  Lahore,  1886; 
second  and  third  editions,  Lahore  ;  fourth  edition,  Cal- 
cutta ;  subsequent  editions,  Calcutta  and  London  ;  pirated 
editions,  New  York  and  elsewhere.  See  Bibliography.)  A 
volume  of  local  satires,  parodies,  and  society  verse.  Since 
Mr.  Kipling  has  not  included  the  book  among  his  collected 
works,  the  poems  are  not  in  this  primer  given  separate  con- 
sideration under  their  titles.1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are 
hardly  worth  it.  The  best  of  them,  in  our  judgment,  are 
entitled,  The  Story  of  Uriah,  The  Galley  Slave,  and  What 
the  People  Said.  The  full  list  of  poems  in  the  first  Cal- 
cutta edition  (1890)  follows:  Departmental  Ditties.  — 
Prelude  (''I  have  eaten  your  bread  and  salt");  General 
Summary  ;  Army  Headquarters  ;  Study  of  an  Elevation, 
in  Indian  Ink  ;  A  Legend .  of  the  Foreign  Office  ;  The 
Story  of  Uriah ;  The  Post  that  Fitted ;  Public  Waste  ; 
Delilah  ;  What  Happened  ;  Pink  Dominoes ;  The  Man 
who  could  Write  ;  Municipal  ;  A  Code  of  Morals  ;  The 
Last  Department.  Other  Verses.  —  To  the  Unknown 
Goddess  ;  The  Rupaiyat  of  Omar  Kal'vin ;  La  Nuit 
Blanche  ;  My  Rival  ;  The  Lovers'  Litany  ;  A  Ballad  of 
Burial  ;  Divided  Destinies  ;  The  Masque  of  Plenty  ;  The 
Mare's  Nest ;  Possibilities  ;  Christmas  in  India  ;  Pagett, 
M.P.  ;  The  Song  of  the  Women;  A  Ballade  of  Jakko 
Hill  ;  The  Plea  of  the  Simla  Dancers  ;  The  Ballad  of 
Fisher's  Boarding  House  ;  As  the  Bell  Clinks  ;  Certain 
Maxims  of  Hafiz  ;  The  Grave  of  the  Hundred  Head  ;  The 

1  As  the  Kipling  Primer  goes  to  press  we  learn  that  an  author- 
ized edition  of  the  Ditties  is  just  issued  by  Mr.  Kipling's  New 
York  publishers.  This  fact  does  not,  however,  alter  our  convic- 
tion that  these  juvenile  verses  hardly  deserve  separate  consid- 
eration. 


\X 


Index  to  Writings  109 

Moon  of  Other  Days  ;  The  Overland  Mail  ;  What  the 
People  Said  ;  The  Undertaker's  Horse  ;  The  Fall  of  Jock 
Gillespie  ;  An  Old  Song  ;  Arithmetic  on  the  Frontier  ; 
One  Viceroy  Resigns  ;  The  Betrothed  ;  A  Tale  of  Two 
Cities  ;  Griffin's  Debt  ;  In  Spring  Time  ;  Two  Months  : 
(1)  In  June,  (2)  In  September;  The  Galley  Slave; 
L' Envoi. 

Derelict,   The.      {The  Seven  Seas.)  —  The  song  of  a 

ship,  wrecked  and  abandoned  at  sea,  mourning  her  lost  estate. 

/    Destroyers,   The.  —  A  poem  of  nine  double  quatrains 

contributed  to    McCluri s  for   May,    1898.      This  spirited 

description  of  torpedoes  as  used  in  modern  warfare  opens  : 

"The  strength  of  twice  three  thousand  horse 
That  seek  the  single  goal." 

Possibly  the  most  striking  lines  are  : 

"  The  brides  of  death  that  wait  the  groom  — 

The  choosers  of  the  slain." 

• 

Devil  and  the  Deep  Sea,  The.  {Day's  Work.)  — 
A  British  whaling-steamer,  the  "  Haliotis,"  won  a  bad 
reputation  by  piratical  and  poaching  expeditions,  and  was 
finally  captured  in  tropical  waters,  her  holds  filled  with 
stolen  pearls.  A  foreign  man-of-war  signalled  her  to 
"heave  to."  Its  order  being  disobeyed,  it  fired  a  shot 
which  disabled  her  engines.  The  "  Haliotis  "  was  then 
towed  to  the  nearest  port,  and  the  crew,  forbidden  access 
to  their  consul,  were  marched  into  the  back  country  and 
there  impressed  into  the  army.  The  British  Government 
demanded  apologies  and  reparation.  The  men  were  grudg- 
ingly released  and  supplied  with  provisions,  but  were  at 
last  removed  to  the   "Haliotis,"  which  rode  at  anchor  in 


1 1  o  A   Kipling   Primer 

the  harbor,  stripped  of  everything  except  its  wrecked  en- 
gines. Wardrop,  the  Scotch  engineer,  was  equal  to  the 
exigency.  How  he  patched  up  the  machinery  with  the 
aid  of  his  naked,  half-starved  associates,  how  the  boat 
made  her  escape  under  her  own  steam,  and  how  she  met 
her  final  fate  —  these  facts  are  related  with  great  skill. 

Disturber  of  Traffic,  The.  (Many  Inventions.}  — 
A  powerful  study  of  the  growth  of  madness  in  the  brain  of 
one  Dowse,  a  lonely  lighthouse  keeper,  stationed  at  Flores 
Strait  in  the  Java  seas.  Hardly  less  remarkable  is  the 
rapidly-sketched  portrait  of  Challong,  the  "sea-gypsy " 
Caliban  with  "  webby-foot-hands,"  Dowse's  sole  com- 
panion. The  story  is  concerned  with  the  wild  conduct 
into  which  Dowse  was  led  by  his  insanity,  with  his  rescue, 
and  with  his  subsequent  cure. 

"  In  '  The  Disturber  of  Traffic  '  Mr.  Kipling  gives 
us  one  of  those  inimitable  sketches  of  blended  farce  and 
pathos  that  he  alone  seems  able  to  contrive."  — 
Academy. 
Dove  of  Dacca,  The.  (Ballads.')  — An  Indian 
Rajah,  on  setting  forth  to  battle,  left  word  that  if  a  "dove 
of  flight"  he  took  with  him  should  return,  it  might  be 
taken  as  a  sign  that  he  was  defeated,  and  thereupon  his 
palace  should  be  burned,  lest  his  foemen  take  it  as  a  spoil 
of  war.  He  was  victorious,  but  the  homesick  dove,  escap- 
ing, flew  home  before  he  could  overtake  it.  He  found  his 
orders  carried  out.      His  palace  was  in  ashes. 

Dray  Wara  Yow  Dee.  (In  Black  and  White.)  > — 
A  native,  having  found  his  wife  unfaithful,  has  killed  her, 
and  is  devoting  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the  capture  and  pun- 
ishment of  the  guilty  lover.      The  man  is  a  devout  Mussul- 


Index  to  Writings  1 1 1 

man,  but  regards  the  fulfilment  of  his  vengeance  as  a  religious 
duty.  "  When  I  have  accomplished  the  matter  and  my 
honor  is  made  clean  I  shall  return  thanks  unto  God,  the 
Holder  of  the  Scale  of  the  Law,  and  I  shall  sleep." 

Dream  of  Duncan  Parrenness,  The.  (Life's  Handi- 
cap.')—  A  dissolute  youth  dreams  that  a  man  enters  his 
chamber  and  replies,  when  ordered  angrily  to  leave,  that  a 
youth  of  the  other's  kidney  need  fear  neither  man  nor  devil, 
and  that  as  brave  a  fellow  was  like  enough  to  become  Gov- 
ernor-General. But  for  all  this,  he  adds,  the  young  man 
must  pay  the  price.  As  he  turns  his  eyes  on  Duncan,  the 
lad  is  horrified  to  discover  that  this  man  of  the  evil  face  is 
himself  grown  older.  The  tormentor  then  demands  in  turn 
the  youth's  trust  in  man,  faith  in  woman,  and  boy's  soul 
and  conscience.  In  return  he  leaves  something  in  Duncan's 
hand.  At  dawn  the  boy  looks  at  the  gift.  It  is  a  morsel 
of  dry  bread. 

Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft,  The.  (Wee  Willie 
Winkle.)  —  A  story  of  the  heroism  of  two  fourteen- 
year-old  boys.  One  was  a  London  gutter-snipe,  neither 
could  give  much  account  of  his  parentage,  both  fought  each 
other  and  all  comers,  swore,  smoked,  and  drank.  But 
when  their  regiment,  made  up  of  raw  recruits,  were  for  the 
first  time  in  action,  and  had  broken  and  fled  before  the  long- 
knifed  Afghans,  it  was  the  two  drummer-boys  who  marched 
side  by  side  straight  into  the  enemy's  front,  urging  forward 
their  cowardly  comrades  to  the  tune  of  the  "  British  Grena- 
dier." The  boys  dropped  at  the  first  volley,  but  the 
English  rallied  and  carried  the  day. 

"  'The  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft '  is  one  of  those 
performances  which  are  apt  to  reduce  criticism   to  the 


112  A  Kipling  Primer 

mere  tribute  of  a  respectful  admiration.  It  is  absolutely 
and  thoroughly  well  done. ' '  —  Francis  Adams  in 
Fortnightly. 

"  By  far  the  most  powerful  and  ingenious  story  which 
Mr.  Kipling  has  yet  dedicated  to  a  study  of  childhood.'" 
—  Edmund  Gosse,  Century,  1 8  9 1 . 

"  <  The  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft '  is  an  epic  which 
has  seized  upon  every  man  from  the  age  often  upwards.  ,-> 
/  Blackwoods . 

V-'Eathen,  The.      {The  Seven  Seas.)  — A  barrack-room 
ballad. 

Education  of  Otis  Yeere,  The.  ( Under  the  Deo- 
dars. )  —  This  tale  has  for  its  motive  the  failure  of  a  pla- 
tonic  friendship.  Mrs.  Hauksbee  attempts  to  act  the  role 
of  "  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend"  toward  Otis  Yeere, 
a  thoroughly  honest  but  commonplace  and  discouraged 
man.  Her  purpose  is  only  half  selfish.  She  desires  to 
draw  the  man  out  of  himself,  to  inspire  in  him  new  confi- 
dence in  his  abilities  and  new  interest  in  life.  He  repays 
her  by  falling  madly  in  love.  When  she  repulses  his 
advances  angrily,  he  is   completely  crushed. 

"  Mrs.  Hauksbee  and  Mrs.  Mallowe  are  neither  edi- 
fying nor  —  shall  we  venture  to  breathe  the  heresy  ?  — 
amusing  companions.     Their  cynicism  palls  upon  us,  and 
their  occasional  lapses  into  womanliness  fail  to  be  con- 
vincing.     «  The  Education  of   Otis    Yeere '   and    *  A 
Second  Rate  Woman '     ...     are  clever  and  caustic 
enough,  no  doubt,  but  they  leave  a  disagreeable  taste  in 
the  mouth.'"  — Athenceiun. 
English   Flag,   The.      {Ballads.')  —  In    reply  to  the 
question,  "What  is  the  Flag  of  England  ?     Winds  of  the 
World,  declare  !  "  —  the  North,   South,    East,   and  West 


Index  to  Writings  1 1  3 

Winds  make  answer  in  turn.  The  result  is  one  of  the 
most  spirited  poems  Kipling  has  given  us.  Mr.  Lionel 
Johnson,  in  the  Academy,  finds  it  "grievously  spoiled," 
however,  "by  exaggeration  of  tone." 

Enlightenments  of  Pagett,  M.P.  (Added  in  the 
Outward  Bound  edition,  to  In  Black  and  White. )  Mr. 
Pagett,  Member  of  Parliament,  is  possessed  of  much  self- 
complacency  and  of  many  decided  theories  about  India. 
Both  are  considerably  shaken  after  a  visit  to  his  old  school- 
friend  Orde,  now  an  English  official  in  Amara.  Pagett's 
especial  hobby  is  the  desirability  of  bestowing  electoral 
institutions  on  the  people,  but  he  is  shown  first  that  they 
do  not  desire  these,  and  second  that  they  could  not  or 
would  not  exercise  such  privileges  if  they  had  them.  The 
reforms  needed  are  far  more  fundamental.  This  sketch 
aims  to  expose  the  fallacy  of  Liberal  positions  ;  so  too  does 
"The  Head  of  the  District"  (q.v.). 

^Evarra  and  His  Gods.  (Ballads.) —  An  allegorical 
poem  in  blank  verse  relating  to  the  experiences  on  earth 
and  in  Paradise  of  Evarra,  "Maker  of  Gods  in  lands 
beyond  the  seas." 

.-Explanation,  The.  (Ballads.) —  Once  on  a  time 
the  arrows  in  the  quivers  of  Love  and  of  Death  became  so 
mixed  that  neither  could  distinguish  his  own  darts  from 
those  of  his  enemy.  "  Thus  it  was  they  wrought  our 
woe." 

False  Dawn.  {Plain  Tales. )  —  Two  sisters  who 
resemble  each  other  very  closely  are  in  love  with  the  same 
man.  He  himself  prefers  the  younger  one  and  means  to 
propose  to  her  at  a  moonlight  riding-picnic.  A  furious 
dust-storm  arises   and   adds    to   the  darkness.      The  man, 


114  A   Kipling   Primer 

mistaking  her  for  her  sister,  proposes  to  the  elder  girl  and 
is  accepted.  When  he  discovers  his  mistake  he  is  distracted 
with  fear  and  shame,  but  explanations,  awkward  and  hu- 
miliating, follow  at  sunrise,  and  the  party  ride  homeward. 

Feet  of  the  Young  Men,  The. — A  poem  of  eight 
stanzas  with  chorus,  contributed  by  Kipling  to  the 
Christmas  (1897)  number  of  Scribner's  Magazine.  It 
is  dedicated  "  to  the  memory  of  the  late  W.  Hallett- 
Phillips." 

Finances  of  the  Gods,  The.  {Life's  Handicap.}  — 
A  tale  of  the  gods  told  by  a  Hindu  to  a  child.  It  relates 
how  a  miserly  money-lender,  in  trying  to  outwit  Shiv  and 
Ganesh  and  to  rob  a  poor  mendicant  under  their  protection, 
was  caught  in  his  own  snares. 

Finest  Story  in  the  World,  The.  (Many  Inven- 
tions.} —  A  romance  of  reincarnation.  Kipling  makes  the 
acquaintance  of  a  youth  who  thinks  himself  poet  and  tale- 
writer,  but  who  is  really  without  talent.  One  thing,  how- 
ever, marks  Charlie  Mears  from  other  bank-clerks  with 
aspirations.  He  has  been  a  Greek  galley  slave  in  some 
former  life  and  tosses  about  bits  of  priceless  experience  with 
the  impression  that  they  are  nothing  more  than  inventions 
of  his  fancy.  The  novelist  knows  better,  and  beguiles 
Charlie  into  talking,  under  the  hope  that  he  can  secure 
matter  for  an  immortal  romance.  Things  are  going  well, 
when  the  chain  of  recollections  is  finally  snapped,  and  the  boy 
is  lost.  Charlie  has  "tasted  the  love  of  woman  that  kills 
remembrance  ;  "  the  finest  story  in  the  world  will  never  be 
written. 

"  The  scheme  is  ambitious  in  the  highest  degree,  and 
its  execution  extraordinarily  successful. " — Saturday 
Review. 


Index   to  Writings  1 1  5 

"  It  is  a  pity  that  so  masterly  a  writer  should  give  his 
name  to  such  unfinished  work  as  '  The  Finest  Story  in 
the  World. '  "  —  Spectator. 

"  Ingenious  and  interesting,  but  not  wholly  satisfac- 
tory.'1 —  Athenceum. 

"  A  romance  for  sheer  photographic  realization  bad 
to  beat."  —  Gentleman"1 's  Magazine. 
/  "  The  psychological  skill  of  *  The  Finest  Story  in 
/    the  World  '  is  remarkable."  —  Academy. 

UFirst  Chantey,  The.  (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  A  ballad 
of  primitive  man.  A  pair  of  lovers,  fleeing  from  the  wrath 
of  the  woman's  tribe,  were  miraculously  delivered  from  their 
pursuers  by  the  aid  of  the  Wind  God  and  the  Sun. 

"  *  The  First  Chantey  '  needs  a  second  reading,  and 
repays  it."  — Academy. 
Fleet  in  Being,  A. — A  series  of  descriptive  articles 
published  in  the  Morning  Post  (London)  in  the  latter  part 
of  1  898,  and  subsequently  issued  in  book  form,  which  were 
the  outcome  of  Mr.  Kipling's  cruise  with  the  Channel 
squadron  in  the  fall  of  the  same  year.  Perhaps  a  sufficient 
comment  on  these  brilliant  letters  may  be  found  in  the 
following  communication  from  Mr.  Clarke  Russell  : 

*  *  To  the  Editor  of  the  Morning  Post  (London)  : 

"Sir:  I  have  been  reading  Mr.  Kipling's  contribu- 
tions entitled  A  Fleet  in  Being  with  the  greatest 
enjoyment  and  profit. 

"  A  naval  officer  said  to  me: 

"  *  If  Rudyard  Kipling  had  been  born  in  a  battle- 
ship, if  all  his  life  he  had  drilled  with  the  marines, 
stoked  with  the  stokers,  and  hauled  with  the  Jackies  at 
the  falls,  loaded  and  fired  every  gun  aboard  ship, 
conned  the  vessel  on  the  bridge,  grasped  the  spokes  of 
the  wheel,  chaffed  and  argued  in  the  gun-room,  and  in 


1 1 6  A   Kipling   Primer 


the  ward-room  listened  with  respectful  countenance,  he 
could  not  have  known  more  about  it.' 

"  W.    Clark  Russell. 
"9  Sydney  Place,  Bath,  Nov.  n,  1898." 

Flowers,  The.  (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  A  song  in  praise 
and  defence  of  the  flora  of  Colonial  Britain,  however  exotic 
these  alien  posies  may  appear  to  the  cockney  and  stay-at- 
home.  The  lyric  was  called  out  by  the  following  very 
unsympathetic  comment  in  The  Atkenceum :  "  To  our 
private  taste  there  is  always  something  a  little  exotic, 
almost  artificial,  in  songs  which,  under  an  English  aspect 
and  dress,  are  yet  so  manifestly  the  product  of  other  skies. 
They  affect  us  like  translations ;  the  very  fauna  and  flora  are 
alien,  remote  ;  the  dog's-tooth  violet  is  but  an  ill  substitute 
for  the  rathe  primrose,  nor  can  we  ever  believe  that  the 
wood-robin  sings  as  sweetly  in  April  as  the  English  thrush." 

Follow  Me  'ome.  {The  Seven  Seas.)  —  A  soldier's 
honest  lament  for   a    dead    comrade  : 

"  'E  was  all  that  I  'ad  in  the  way  of  a  friend." 

^r  For  to  Admire.  (The  Seven  Seas.)  —  A  barrack- 
room  ballad. 

^^Tord  o'  Kabul  River.  (Ballads.)  —  A  British  soldier 
mourns  the  death  of  a  comrade  drowned  at  the  Ford  of 
Kabul  river. 

Fourth  Dimension,  The.  (Day's  Work.) — A  rich 
young  American  residing  in  England  desires  to  reach  Lon- 
don in  great  haste,  and  orders  his  butler  to  signal  the  first 
down  train.  On  attempting  to  board  the  express,  how- 
ever, he  meets  with  forcible  resistance,  is  dragged,  after  a 
struggle,  into  the  guard's  van,  and  at  the  terminus  of  the 
line  is  jailed.      He  is  fined  and  set  free,  but  the  flagging  of 


Index  to  Writings  117 

a  train  is  a  more  serious  offence  than  assault,  and  the  Rail- 
way pursues  him  with  a  voluminous  correspondence  and 
the  setting  in  motion  of  legal  machinery.  He  receives  visits 
from  lawyers  who  talk  about  precedents,  and  from  doctors 
who  investigate  his  sanity.  He  is  released  only  after  much 
expense  of  good  temper  and  red  tape,  and  of  explanations 
on  the  part  of  an  English  friend.  On  returning  to  New 
York  he  has  lost  every  trace  of  the  Anglomania  which 
once  characterized   him. 

Friend's  Friend,  A.  {Plain  Tales.) — A  friend, 
against  whom  the  author  vows  vengeance,  sent  a  letter  in- 
troducing an  acquaintance  of  his  and  saying  that  any  kind- 
ness shown  the  visitor  would  be  counted  a  personal  favor. 
The  acquaintance  was  entertained  at  the  Club  and  taken 
to  the  Afghan  Ball.  Here  he  became  hilariously  drunk 
and  disgraced  his  host  before  all  the  guests.  After  the  ball 
the  drunken  man  was  dressed  in  a  very  original  costume 
and  bundled  into  a  bullock-cart  which  carried  him  away. 
He  never  came  back. 

From  Sea  to  Sea. — A  collection  in  two  volumes  of 
the  special  correspondence  and  occasional  articles,  mainly 
letters  of  travel,  contributed  by  Mr.  Kipling  to  the  Lahore 
Civil  and  Military  Gazette  and  the  Allahabad  Pioneer  be- 
tween 1887  and  1889.  It  includes,  in  their  order,  (i) 
Letters  of  Marque ,  nineteen  sketches  descriptive  of  a  journey 
through  Rajputana,  November-December,  1887  ;  (2) 
From  Sea  to  Sea,  thirty -seven  letters,  mainly  descriptive  of 
Japan  and  the  United  States,  and  including  the  sketches 
published  in  the  latter  country  in  an  incorrect  and  fragment- 
ary form  and  without  authorization,  under  the  title  Ameri- 
can  Notes,    March-September,   1889;    (3)    The    City    of 


1 1  8  A  Kipling   Primer 

Dreadful  Night  (not  to  be  confounded  with  the  sketch 
included  in  £>ife's  Handicap},  a  series  of  eight  articles  de- 
picting the  darker  side  of  Calcutta,  whose  worst  haunts 
were  penetrated  by  Mr.  Kipling,  accompanied  by  the  city 
police  ;  (4)  Among  the  Railway  Folk,  three  letters  de- 
scriptive of  Jemalpur,  the  headquarters  of  the  East  India 
Railway  ;  (5)  The  Giridih  Coal- Fields,  three  letters  ;  (6) 
In  an  Opium  Factory,  an  article  occupying  seven  pages  and 
concerned  with  the  manufacture  of  opium  in  the  Ghazipur 
factory,  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  ;  and  (7)  The  Smith 
Administration,  a  collection  of  eighteen  stories  and  sketches 
contributed  by  Mr.  KLipling  to  his  newspaper  between 
1887  and  1888.  Their  titles  follow  :  The  Cow-house 
Jirga  ;  A  Bazaar  Dhulip  ;  The  Hands  of  Justice  ;  The 
Serai  Cabal  ;  The  Story  of  a  King  ;  The  Great  Census  ; 
The  Killing  of  Hatim  Tai  ;  A  Self-made  Man  ;  The  Ven- 
geance of  La\  Beg  ;  Hunting  a  Miracle  ;  The  Explana- 
tion of  Mir  Baksh  ;  A  Letter  from  Golam  Singh  ;  The 
Writing  of  Yakub  Khan  ;  A  King's  Ashes  ;  The  Bride's 
Progress  ;  A  District  at  Play,  What  it  Comes  To  ;  The 
Opinions  of  Gunner  Barnabas. 

The  initial  stories  of  The  Smith  Administration  are  writ- 
ten in  the  first  person  by  one  Smith,  who,  in  governing  a 
household  of  native  servants,  fancifully  calls  himself  a  king, 
and,  adopting  all  the  cant  of  royal  parlance,  speaks  of  him- 
self as  the  Supreme  Government,  the  State,  and  the  like. 
This  device  is  somewhat  awkwardly  carried  out,  and  when 
it  is  wholly  dropped,  as  in  some  of  the  stories,  the  gain  in 
effectiveness  is  notable. 

It  would  be  ungracious  to  find  fault  with  the  juvenile 
tone  of  many  of  the  letters  in  From  Sea  to  Sea.      Such  of 


Index  to  Writings  1 1 9 

them  as  had  been  put  between  covers  in  Mr.  Kipling's 
early  period  were  long  ago  suppressed  by  their  author.  He 
was  forced  to  their  republication,  as  he  says,  "  by  the  enter- 
prise of  various  publishers  who,  not  content  with  disinter- 
ring old  newspaper  work  from  the  decent  seclusion  of  the 
office  files,  have  in  several  instances  seen  fit  to  embellish  it 
with  additions  and  interpolations." 
■  /Fuzzy— Wuzzy.  (Ballads.*) — Tommy  Atkins's  tribute 
td^hefighting  qualities  of  Fuzzy-Wuzzy,  the  savage  Sou- 
danese warrior,  — 

"  'E  rushes  at  the  smoke  when  we  let  drive, 

An',  before  we  know,  'e's  'ackin'  at  our  'ead  ; 
'E's  all  'ot  sand  an'  ginger  when  alive, 

An'  'e's  generally  shammin'  when    'e's  dead." 

"  No  single  ballad  has  had  such  a.  furore  of  success 
as  '  Fuzzy-Wuzzy.'  "  — Francis  Adams y  Fortnightly, 

1893- 
Gate  of  the  Hundred  Sorrows,  The.  (Plai% 
Tales. )  —  The  confession  of  an  opium  slave  six  weeks  be- 
fore he  died.  The  man  describes  with  convincing  realism 
the  history  of  his  five  years'  bondage,  and  gives  us  a  pict- 
ure of  the  opium  den,  "The  Gate  of  the  Hundred  Sor- 
rows,"   which  has  come  to  be  his  only  home. 

"  From  « The  Gate  of  the  Hundred  Sorrows'  more 
is  to  be  gleaned  of  the  real  action  of  opium-smoking, 
and  the  causes  of  that  indulgence,  than  from  many 
sapient  debates  in  the  British  House  of  Commons."  — 
Edmund  Gosse. 

"  Defeats     DeQuincey    on     his     own    ground."  — 
Andrew  Lang. 
Gemini.      (In    Black    and    White.) — The    twins   are 
Durga   Dass  and   Ram   Dass,  whom  no  one  can  tell   apart. 


I  20  A   Kipling  Primer 

Durga  Dass  complains  to  an  English  Sahib  that  he  has 
been  badly  used  by  his  brother.  Ram  Dass  has  incurred 
the  resentment  of  a  wealthy  landholder  who  incites  his 
servants  to  waylay  and  beat  him.  The  servants  mistake 
Durga  for  his  brother,  and  abuse  him  cruelly.  He  falls 
violently  ill.  Ram  Dass  professes  sympathy  and  promises 
aid  in  gaining  justice  from  the  Courts.  Instead  of  doing 
so,  he  secures  false  witnesses,  pretends  to  the  authorities 
that  he  himself  has  been  attacked,  and  wins  a  judgment  of 
five  hundred  rupees.  Not  content  with  this,  he  robs  his 
brother  of  his  savings  and  absconds  with  the  booty. 

"  «  Gemini '  is  a  most  laughable  version  of  the  Comedy 

/    of  Errors. ' '  —  Quarterly. 

\/Gentlemen-Rankers.      {Ballads.) — The    reflections, 

proud,  bitter,  and  despairing,  of  an   Englishman,  bred  and 

educated  as  a  gentleman,  but  now  a  drunken  trooper  of  the 

Empress,  "  damned  from  here  to  Eternity." 

The  Saturday  Review  thought  this  the  only  "  posi- 
tive failure  in  the  volume.'" 
Georgie  Porgie.  {Life's  Handicap.)  — "  Georgie 
Porgie  "  held  an  appointment  in  Upper  Burmah,  and  being 
lonely  took  unto  himself  a  native  wife.  After  three  months 
of  domestic  comfort  he  decided  to  wed  some  girl  at  home 
who  would  not  smoke  cheroots  and  who  could  play  a 
piano.  He  obtained  a  six-months'  leave,  and  sent 
"  Georgina  "  weeping  to  her  father's  house  with  promises 
of  his  speedy  return.  From  England  Georgie  brought  back 
an  English  wife  and  then  went  to  a  new  station,  whither 
the  Burmese  girl,  after  tracking  "her  God"  half  over 
India,  at  last  followed  him.  On  learning  of  his  marriage, 
her  love  was  too  unselfish  to  permit  her  to  make  herself 
known.      She  went  away  broken-hearted. 


Index  to  Writings  121 

Germ-Destroyer,  A.  {Plain  Tales. ) — A  Viceroy 
had  an  officious  Secretary,  whom  he  got  rid  of  in  this  way. 
There  were  two  men,  Mellish,  a  cranky  inventor  of  a 
powder  to  destroy  cholera,  and  Mellishe,  a  rich  grandee, 
stopping  at  the  same  hotel  and  both  desirous  of  seeing  the 
Viceroy.  The  Secretary  in  sending  a  dinner  invitation  to 
Mellishe  left  off  the  final  e  in  his  name.  The  Germ- 
destroyer  accordingly  accepted  the  invitation  and  nearly 
smoked  out  the  Viceroy  with  the  lighted  powder.  His 
Excellency  told  the  joke  on  Wonder,  the  Secretary,  on  all 
occasions.  *'  And  I  really  tho't  for  a  moment,"  he  wound 
up,  "that  my  dear  good  Wonder  had  hired  an  assassin  to 
clear  his  way  to  the  throne."  Wonder  saw  the  point  ;  he 
found  his  health  suddenly  giving  way,  and  resigned  his 
post. 
.  \s  Gift  of  the  Sea,  The.  {Ballads.) — A  fisherman's 
widow  sits  by  the  shroud  of  her  dead  baby.  From  outside 
the  cottage  drifts  the  sound  of  an  infant's  wailing.  Believ- 
ing it  to  be  her  own  child's  soul  crying  out  as  it  "  waits  to 
pass,"  she  delays  investigating  the  origin  of  the  voice. 
Finally  she  discovers  a  newly-dead  child  on  the  shore,  who 
might  have  taken  the  place  of  her  own  had  she  rescued  it  in 
time. 

Gipsy    Trail,    The. — A    lyric    of    thirteen    four-line 
^/stanzas    which    appeared    in    the     Century  for    December, 
1892. 

Giridih   Coal-Fields,  The.      (See   From  Sea  to  Sea.) 

God  from  the  Machine,  The.  {Soldiers  Three.)  — 
In  the  days  when  Mulvaney  was  a  "Corp'ril,"  the  Col- 
onel's daughter  was  in  love  with  Captain  Broom,  "a 
tricky  man  an'  a  liar  by  natur',"   who  had  won  her  con- 


122  A   Kipling   Primer 

sent  to  an  elopement.  Mulvaney,  engaged  in  shifting 
scenes  for  an  amateur  play  in  which  the  two  were  actors, 
overheard,  by  persistent  eavesdropping,  the  full  plot.  His 
method  of  preventing  its  accomplishment  forms  the  basis  of 
a  very  amusing  tale,  told  in  his  own  words. 

/Gunga  Din.      {Ballads.)  —  A  tribute  to  the  regimental 
water-carrier  — 

"  The  uniform  'e  wore 
Was  nothin'  much  before, 
An'  rather  less  than  'arf  o'  that  be'ind." 

And  yet,  among  other  good  characteristics  : 

«<  'E  didn't  seem  to  know  the  use  o'  fear." 
Gunga' s  unselfish  performance  of  duty,  and  manly  death 
on    the    battlefield,    raise  the  poor    fellow  into  the  heroic 
type.      One  of  Kipling's  masterpieces. 

"«  Gunga    Din'    is    one  of  the  very  finest  of  the 
Ballads.'"  — Francis  Adams  in  Fortnightly. 

"  Much  as  we  delight  in  '  Fuzzy- Wuzzy,'  our  espe- 
cial favorite   in   all    Mr.    Kipling's   work    is    «  Gunga 
Din.'      It  has    the  unequalled    lilt   of   Kipling    at    his 
best.'"  — Athenczum. 
Haunted  Subalterns.      (Added    to  Plain   Tales  from 
the    Hills    in    the    Outward  Bound  edition. )  —  Horrocks 
and  Tesser,   subalterns  in  the   "  Inextinguishables,"   were 
either  haunted  by  ghosts  or  possessed  by   devils.      Other- 
wise somebody  must  have  carried  out  so  successful  a  practi- 
cal joke  that  the   mystery  of  the   White  Things  and  the 
Banjo  that  played  itself  could  never  be  unravelled,  which  is 
hardly  possible. 

Head  of  the  District,  The.      {Life's  Handicap.)  — 
Yardley-Orde,  deputy  commissioner  of  a  wild  border  dis- 


Index  to  Writings  123 

trict,  died  of  fever.  The  Khusru  Kheyl  were  insubordinate  ; 
it  was  only  the  strong  hand  of  the  deputy  that  had  held 
the  tribe  in  check.  The  blunder  was  made  of  appointing 
as  the  Englishman's  successor  a  native  Bengali,  Grish 
Chunder  De\  This  story  is  a  record  of  the  fatal  conse- 
quences. 

"  '  The   Head  of  the  District '    sums  up,  in  its  two 
dozen  pages,  the  whole   question  of  Indian  administra- 
tion.1' —  Athenceum. 
Her    Majesty's  Servants.      {Jungle  Book.') — Obser- 
vations on   army  and  camp  life  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
baggage-camel,  a  troop-horse,  Billy,  the  mule,  Two  Tails, 
the  elephant,    and   a   pair  of  gun-bullocks,  who  conduct  a 
conversation  in  the  writer's  hearing. 

Hill  of  Illusion,  The.  {Under  the  Deodars.)  — 
What  promises  to  be  a  Launcelot  and  Guinevere  affair  is 
prevented  by  Guinevere's  withdrawal  from  the  contract 
just  before  the  projected  flight.  "  It  can't  last,"  she 
explains  ;  "you'll  get  angry,  and  then  you'll  swear,  and 
then  you'll  get  jealous,  and  then  you'll  mistrust  me,  —  you 
do  now  !  "  This  dramatic  sketch  in  dialogue  has  almost 
no  plot,  but  it  develops  a  very  subtle  psychological  situation. 
"  A  masterpiece  of  analysis  and  penetration."  — 
Blackwoods. 

" Contains   the    most   admirably  sustained    piece    of 

dialogue    he     (Kipling)    has    yet  written."  — Francis 

Adams,  Fortnightly ',  November,  1891. 

His    Chance     in     Life.        {Plain     Tales.)  —  Michele 

D'Cruze  was  a  telegraph  signaller  with  small  wages  but 

much  pride  —  for  one-eighth  of  his  blood  was  white.      He 

desired  to  wed  a  nurse-girl,  also   of  mixed   blood,   whose 

mother  consented    to    the  marriage  only  on  condition  that 


124  A.  Kipling  Primer 

Michele  should  earn  at  least  fifty  rupees  a  month.  Shortly 
afterward  he  was  transferred  to  Tibasu,  a  little  sub-office, 
and  there  his  chance  came.  The  Hindus  and  Mahomme- 
dans  started  a  riot,  which  Michele,  acting  as  the  only 
representative  of  English  authority  in  the  place,  promptly 
put  down.  As  a  reward,  he  was  transferred  to  a  sixty-six- 
rupee  post,  and  his  marriage  soon  followed. 

His  Majesty  the  King.  {Wee  Willie  Winkle.}  — 
His  Majesty  the  King  is  a  little  boy  whose  father  and 
mother  have  become  estranged  through  a  foolish  misunder- 
standing. They  have  turned  him  over  to  a  governess  and 
are  too  busy  with  their  separate  occupations  to  pet  the 
child.  How  the  lonely  boy  longs  for  and  finds  compan- 
ionship, how  he  unconsciously  prevents  his  mother  from 
entering  into  a  ruinous  intrigue,  and  later  is  the  cause  of 
uniting,  over  his  sick-bed,  the  hearts  of  his  parents  in  new 
love  for  each  other  and  for  him,  —  these  are  some  of  the 
things  the  story-writer  describes  for  us. 

His  Private  Honour.  {Many  Inventions.} —  A 
young  lieutenant  strikes  Ortheris  on  parade.  The  latter, 
though  furiously  angry,  screens  the  offender  by  lying  about 
the  matter  to  the  commanding  officer  ;  but  he  broods 
savagely  on  his  wrong.  Ortheris  finally  gains  "satisfac- 
tion," and  ends  by  pronouncing  his  enemy  "  a  gentleman 
all  over."  The  narrative  of  the  fight  between  Ouless  and 
Ortheris  in  the  high  grass  of  the  jungle  is  given  with  great 
humor  and  spirit. 

"  A  brisker  tale  was  never  penned."  — Atheneetim. 

His  Wedded  Wife.  {Plain  Tales.}  —  A  Senior  Sub- 
altern badgered  the  life  out  of  a  pretty,  boyish  comrade, 
fresh  from  Home,   until  the  latter  laid   a   wager   that  he 


Index  to  Writings  125 

would  work  a  sell  on  his  tormentor  which  the  man  wouldn't 
forget.  One  night,  dressed  as  a  lady,  the  younger  man, 
in  the  presence  of  all  the  Mess,  came  upon  the  Senior 
Subaltern,  who  had  recently  announced  his  marriage 
engagement,  and,  sobbing,  threw  his  arms  about  the  other's 
neck,  greeting  him  as  "my  darling"  and  "husband." 
So  perfectly  was  the  part  of  the  neglected  wife  acted  that 
all  failed  to  penetrate  the  disguise.  The  thing  had  assumed 
almost  a  serious  air  when  the  actor  announced  his  identity 
and  demanded  the  money  he  had  won. 

How  Fear  Came.  {Second  Jungle  Book.')  —  In  the 
early  days  of  the  Jungle,  Fear  was  unknown.  The  beasts 
lived  together  unsuspiciously,  nor  as  yet  had  any  died. 
Their  food  was  grass,  leaves,  and  fruit.  But  the  First  of 
the  Tigers  in  a  fit  of  fury  killed  a  buck,  thus  bringing  Death 
into  the  Jungle.  As  a  result  the  Jungle  People  were  told 
that  they  should  know  Fear.  It  was  found  in  the  form  of 
Man,  a  hairless  creature  sitting  in  a  cave.  His  voice  filled 
the  beasts  with  terror,  and  they  became  even  afraid  one  of  the 
other.  But  the  Tiger  determined  to  follow  and  slay  the 
new  enemy,  thinking  thus  to  destroy  Fear  forever.  On 
the  Man's  death,  other  creatures  of  his  kind  waged  warfare 
against'  the  Jungle  People,  and  Fear  was  thenceforward 
never  absent  from  them. 

"The  wild  sweep  of  the  narrative  is  inimitable."  — 
Joel  Chandler  Harris. 
U"'  Hunting— Song     of    the    Seeonee    Pack.  — A    three- 
stanza  lyric  following  "  Mowgli's  Brothers  "  in  the  Jungle 
Bjsok.      Its  refrain  is  "Once,  twice,  and  again  !  " 
^s    Hymn  before  Action.      (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  An  elo- 
quent and  devout  appeal  for  aid  to  the  "  God  of  Battles." 


126  A   Kipling   Primer 

"  His  is  a  healthy,  austere,  old-fashioned  faith  —  the 
faith  of  England  and  the  Old  Testament.      The  two 
great  utterances  that  we  have  had  of  it,  <  The  Reces- 
sional,' and  the  *  Hymn  before  Action,'  are  composed 
of  the  words  of  the  Psalmist  and  Milton  and  Cromwell. 
They  are  both  such  hymns  as  David  and  Joshua  might 
have  used."  —  IV.   B.  Parker  in  New   World. 
Imperial   Rescript,    An.      (Ballads.)  —  A  short  para- 
ble giving  us  Kipling's  view  of  present  industrial  conditions. 
It  is  characterized  by  British  horse  sense,  and  faith  in  "  the 
God  of  Things  as  They  Are." 

In  Ambush.  — A  tale  of  school-boy  escapades  published 
in  McClure's  for  August,  1898.  Stalky,  McTurk,  and 
Beetle,  introduced  to  the  readers  of  McClure's  in  the 
"  Slaves  of  the  Lamp  "  (August,  1897),  and  to  reappear 
in  Stalky  and  Co.,  are  the  principal  actors. 

In  an  Opium  Factory.  (See  From  Sea  to  Sea.) 
In  Error.  (Plain  Tales.)  —  Moriarty,  a  civil  en- 
gineer who  has  become  secretly  enslaved  to  the  drink  habit, 
meets  Mrs.  Reiver,  a  thoroughly  bad  woman  (see  "The 
Rescue  of  Pluffles  "),  and  completely  idealizes  her.  As  a 
tribute  to  the  influence  of  this  woman  whom  he  regards 
angelic,  he  masters  his  appetite.  The  question  is,  What 
credit  does  Mrs.  Reiver  deserve  for  his  reformation  ? 

In  Flood  Time.  (In  Black  and  White.) —  The 
warden  of  Barhwi  Ford  relates  a  story  of  his  past  life  to  a 
Sahib  who  wishes  to  cross  the  stream.  When  a  young 
man  he  loved  a  Hindu  girl  who  lived  at  Pateera,  far  down 
the  river,  and  thither  every  night  the  youth  went  to  meet 
his  sweetheart  among  the  crops.  Another  suitor  won  the 
man's  hatred,  and  he  swam  thereafter  with  a  knife  in  his 
belt.      When  the  great  Flood  came,  the  lover  kept  his  tryst 


Index  to  Writings  127 

despite  the  wrath  of  the  torrent.  The  most  thrilling  epi- 
sode is  that  of  the  man's  meeting  with  the  corpse  of  his 
rival  in  mid-stream  and  making  use  of  it  as  a  life-buoy. 
This  tale  is  one  of  Kipling's  greatest  triumphs. 

"  This  little  story  is  quite  a  poem  in  prose  5   it  could 
not  be  praised  too  highly.'"  —  Edinburgh  Review. 

"  The  idyl  of  a  dusky  Hero  and  Leander. 
Enthralling.""  — Athenceum. 
In  the  House  of  Suddhoo.  {Plain  Tales.'}  —  Old 
Suddhoo,  whose  son  at  Peshawar  is  very  ill,  falls  into  the 
toils  of  a  pretended  sorcerer.  The  latter,  getting  a  friend 
to  telegraph  daily  reports  of  the  boy's  condition,  gives  Sud- 
dhoo the  impression,  with  the  aid  of  uncanny  conjuring 
tricks,  that  the  information  is  obtained  by  magic.  After 
the  boy  recovers,  the  father  is  still  entirely  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  magician,  whom  he  continues  to  give  large  sums 
of  money,  much  to  the  disgust  and  anger  of  Janoo,  the 
daughter. 

In  the  Matter  of  a  Private.  (Soldiers  Three.}  — 
Crimes  committed  by  British  soldiers  are  often  due  to  noth- 
ing more  than  hysteria.  Private  Simmons  was  made  the 
butt  of  his  companions  and  was  tormented  especially  by 
one  Losson,  who  added  to  his  other  insults  that  of  a  parrot 
which  he  taught  to  call  Simmons  names.  Simmons' 
strained  endurance  finally  snapped ;  seizing  his  rifle  he 
shot  Losson  dead,  and  rushing  away  defied  his  pursuers.  In 
his  madness  he  wounded  a  major  and  shot  at  a  corporal. 
Simmons  was  hanged.  Press  and  public  were  shocked  at 
the  criminality  of  the  army.  The  Colonel  attributed 
Simmons'  act  to  drink,  and  the  chaplain  to  the  devil. 

1  *  The  wonderful  study  of  heat-hysteria,  entitled,  *  In 
the  Matter  of  a  Private/  "  —  Athenceum. 


i  28  A   Kipling   Primer 

In  the  Neolithic  Age.  {Ballads.') — A  striking 
satirical  poem  which  enforces  the  truth  that  quarrelling  over 
different  ways  and  means  to  produce  an  effect  is  foolish, 
provided  only  the  effect  is  produced  : 

"  There  are  nine  and  sixty  ways  of  constructing  tribal 
lays, 

And  every  single  one  of  them  is  right  !  " 

In  the  Pride  of  His  Youth.  {Plain  Tales.*)  —  The 
career  of  Dicky  Hatt  in  India  was  handicapped  by  an 
early  and  imprudent  marriage.  He  was  forced  to  practice 
great  economy  in  order  to  send  home  the  desired  allow- 
ances. After  his  baby  died  his  fretful  wife  wrote  that  if 
certain  things  costing  money  had  been  done  the  child 
might  have  been  saved.  The  final  blow  was  the  news  of 
the  woman's  elopement  with  another  man.  Although 
Dicky's  hard  work  had  meanwhile  told,  the  offer  of  a 
superior  post  was  bitterly  declined.  His  spirit  was  broken. 
In  the  Rukh.  {Many  Inventions.)  —  Mowgli  of  the 
Jungle  Books  reappears  —  now  a  grown  man,  a  sort  of 
Eastern  Donatello.  Muller,  the  fat  Dutchman,  and  Gis- 
borne,  sturdy  forest  officer,  form  a  background  for  the 
lightly-sketched  child  of  nature,  walking  like  a  shadow, 
wreathed  with  white  flowers,  taming  wolf  and  wild  pig. 
His  attachment  to  Sahib  Gisborne,  his  detection  of  Abdul's 
theft,  his  flight  with  the  latter's  daughter,  and  their  subse- 
quent marriage,  —  a  wild  birds'  mating,  —  are  deftly  woven 
into  this  charming  narrative. 

"  The   whole    study  is  one    of  great    subtilty,   and 

marked     by    a    powerful    restraint    not    usual    in    Mr. 

Kipling's  work.      It  closes  with  a  love  idyll  of  exquisite 

beauty. ' '  —  Academy. 


Index  to  Writings  129 

Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney,  The.  (Life's 
Handicap. )  —  Mulvaney  becomes  possessed  of  a  gorgeous 
palanquin  and  marvellous  adventures  grow  out  of  that 
ownership.  Obtaining  three  days'  leave  "to  see  a 
friend,"  the  Irishman  hires  bearers  and  departs  in  his  royal 
chair,  hoping  to  find  a  purchaser.  An  enemy  pays  off  an 
old  score  by  making  Mulvaney  drunk  and  putting  him  on  a 
train  bound  for  Benares,  hoping  thus  to  make  him  over-stay 
his  leave  and  obtain  martial  discipline.  But  at  Benares  he 
has  the  luck  to  stumble  upon  a  "  Queens'  Praying,"  and 
his  palanquin  being  mistaken  for  that  of  a  native  queen  he 
is  carried  to  the  temple  of  Prithi-Devi.  Here  his  ready  wit 
saves  his  life.  Wrapping  himself  in  the  lining  of  the  palan- 
quin, he  emerges  from  his  prison,  and  in  the  half-light  of 
the  temple  successfully  impersonates  the  God  Krishna. 
After  imposing  on  the  superstitious  women  and  intimidating 
the  priest,  he  escapes  and  returns  to  the  regiment. 

"  What  is  «  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney  ' 
but    rollicking,    incomparable,    irresistible    farce?"  — 
Blackwoods. 
w-^  Jacket,   The.      (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  A  barrack-room 
ballad. 

"  Represents  the  worst  type  of  Mr.  Kipling's  bal- 
lads." —  Spectator. 
Jews  in  Shushan.  (Life's  Handicap.) — A  story  of 
eight  Hebrews  in  Shushan,  a  city  in  the  north  of  India. 
When  their  number  grew  to  ten  they  could  get  a  synagogue, 
and  Ephraim,  the  meek  bill-collector,  would  be  its  priest. 
The  little  colony  were  happy  in  this  hope,  despite  the 
abuse  they  received  from  Gentile  neighbors,  until  the  sick- 
ness fell  upon  Shushan.  Confident  in  the  protection  of 
God,  they  defied  the  epidemic.      But  it  took  one  and  then 


130  A   Kipling   Primer 

another  of  the  band,  and  the  few  who  were  untouched  left 
sorrowfully  for  Calcutta. 

Judgment  of  Dungara,  The.  (In  Black  and  White.') 
—  A  story  of  the  vengeance  which  "  the  great  God  Dun- 
gara, the  God  of  Things  as  They  Are,  executed  on  the 
converts  of  the  Rev.  Justus  Krenk,  pastor  of  the  Tubingen 
Mission,  and  upon  Lotta,  his  virtuous  wife."  The  priest 
of  Dungara  hypocritically  professed  friendship  and  taught 
the  Christian  converts  how  to  make  clothes  out  of  the  fibre 
of  a  poisonous  nettle.  Soon  after  being  put  on,  the  gar- 
ments stung  unmercifully,  and  the  superstitious  natives 
leaped  into  the  river,  angrily  renouncing  together  with  their 
clothes  the  new  religion  of  whose  falsity  Dungara  had  sent 
them  so  forcible  a  sign. 

"'The  Judgment  of  Dungara,'  with  [its]  rattling 
humor  worthy  of  Lever."  —  Gosse. 
Judson  and  the  Empire.  ( Many  Inventions. )  — 
Lieutenant  Harrison  Edward  Judson,  of  the  British  Navy, 
commonly  known  as  Bai-Jove  Judson,  interfered  in  the 
affairs  of  a  little  half-bankrupt  European  dependency  in 
South  Africa,  and  by  the  exercise  of  good-natured  diplom- 
acy "satisfied  the  self-love  of  a  great  and  glorious  people, 
and  saved  a  monarchy  from  the  ill-considered  despotism 
which  is  called   a   Republic." 

"  A  very  cheerful  and  entertaining  story." — Sat- 
urday Review. 

"  *  Judson  and  the  Empire,'  in  which  Mr.  Kipling 
breaks  out  in  a  new  place,  and  annexes  South  Africa  to 
the  realms  of  his  imagination,  with  a  delicious  disquisi- 
tion on  the  Portuguese  in  his  finest  imperial  manner." 
- —  Athenceum. 
"Just-So  "  Stories,  The.  — Three  fantastic  children's 


Index   to  Writings  131 

tales  which  appeared  with  illustrations  in  St.  Nicholas  for 
December,  1897  ;  January,  1898  ;  and  February,  1898. 
They  have  never  been  included  in  any  book  of  the  author's. 

Kaa's  Hunting.  {Jungle  Book.)  —  Once,  before 
Mowgli  was  turned  out  of  the  Wolf-pack,  he  got  into 
trouble  with  the  Bandar-log  or  Monkey  people.  Seizing 
the  child,  they  bore  him  through  lofty  tree-tops  to  the  Cold 
Lairs  or  Monkey  City,  and  Baloo  and  Bagheera  tried  in 
vain  to  follow  the  captors.  It  was  not  until  the  aid  of  Kaa, 
the  Rock  Python,  was  enlisted  that  Mowgli' s  friends  were 
equal  to  the  task  of  rescuing  him.  The  fight  at  the  Lairs 
was  a  fearful  one,  but  it  ended  successfully. 

Kidnapped.  {Plain  Tales.)  —  A  young  English  officer 
was  determined  on  making  an  undesirable  marriage  which 
would  have  ruined  his  career.  Mrs.  Hauksbee  saved  him. 
Through  her  influence  he  obtained  seven  weeks'  leave  for 
a  shooting-tour  in  Rajputana,  whence  he  returned  cured  of 
his  folly.  All  this  shows  the  necessity  of  establishing  "a 
properly  conducted  Matrimonial  Department." 

King,  The.  (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  Every  age  thinks 
that  romance  died  with  the  age  preceding.  Yet  the  boy- 
god  is  with  us  still,  revealing  new  wonders,  as  great  as  any 
of  old,  through  steam  and  machinery.  The  "backward- 
gazing  world  "  of  to-day  may  not  appreciate  this,  but  the 
bard  of  to-morrow  will. 

King's  Ankus,  The.  {Second  Jungle  Book. )  —  Mowgli 
fights  with  and  conquers  White  Hood,  the  treacherous 
cobra  who  guards  the  king's  treasures.  He  carries  away 
from  the  deserted  vault  a  three-foot  ankus  (elephant  goad) 
studded  with  jewels,  but  the  snake  warns  him  that  it  may 
kill  him  at  last,  for  it  is  Death.      When  Mowgli  grows  tired 


132  A   Kipling   Primer 

of  its  weight  he  throws  it  from  him.  A  man  finds  it  and 
escapes.  Mowgli  and  Bagheera,  after  following  the  trail, 
discover  that  the  ankus  has  been  the  cause  of  more  than  one 
death  among  the  covetous  savages.  Mowgli  finally  pos- 
sesses himself  of  the  jewelled  goad,  and  returning  to  the 
vault  hurls  it  back  among  the  treasure  heaps.  "  Ah,  ha  !  " 
says  the  cobra.  "  It  returns,  then.  I  said  the  thing  was 
Death." 

/  Kitchener's  School.  — A  ballad  often  stanzas,  in  the 
London  Times,  Dec.  8,  1898,  and  in  Literaturet  Dec. 
10,  1898,   beginning, 

"  Oh,  Hubshee,  carry  your  shoes  in  your  hand  and  bow 
your  head  on  your  breast  ; 

This  is  the  message  of  Kitchener,  who  did  not  break  you 
in  jest." 

The  poem  purports  to  be  "a  translation  of  the  song 
that  was  made  by  a  Mahomedan  schoolmaster  of  the 
Bengal  Infantry  (sometime  on  service  at  Suakim)  when 
he  heard  that  the  Sirdar  was  taking  money  from  the  English 
to  build  a  Madrissa  for  Hubshees  —  a  college  for  the 
Sudanese." 

"The  song  is  not  Mr.  Kipling  at  his  best,  but  it  is 
very  excellent  rhymed  journalism."  — Acadetny. 

Ladies,  The.  {The  Seven  Seas.) — Tommy  Atkins 
recounts  his  various  amours  and  bids  us  be  warned  by  his 
example.  Incidentally  he  philosophizes  knowingly  on  the 
Sex. 

Lament  of  the  Border  Cattle  Thief,  The. 
(Ballads.) — The  rascal,  now  in  jail  "for  lifting  of  the 
kine,"  longs  for  his  wild  life  again,  and,  wholly  unrepent- 
ant, threatens  worse  depredations  if  once  he  is  liberated. 


Index  to  Writings  133 

Lang  Men  o'  Larut,  The.  (Life's  Handicap.}  — 
Three  enormously  tall  Scotchmen  live  in  the  tropical 
dependency  of  Larut.  Esdras  B.  Longer,  of  San  Francisco, 
himself  six  feet  three,  wagered  a  big  drink,  on  first  visiting 
Larut,  that  he  was  the  longest  man  on  the  island.  The 
bet  was  accepted  and  the  three  giants  were  successively 
produced.  It  was  not  until  Lang  Lammitter,  six  feet 
nine,  was  presented  that  the  Californian  collapsed.  He 
had  meant  to  slide  out  of  his  bet,  if  he  were  overtopped,  on 
the  strength  of  the  ri oldie  on  his  visiting-card.  But  in  the 
face  of  such  total  eclipse  he  could  only  stand  treat  for  the 
biggest  drunk  the  island  had  ever  known.  This  is  one  of 
the  shortest  and  poorest  of  Kipling's  tales. 

"  Unspeakably    mediocre    and   wretched  stuff."    — 
Francis  Adams  in  Fort?iightly . 
See  "The  Wandering  Jew.  " 
Last  Chantey,   The.      ( The  Seven    Seas.)   —  After 
Earth  has   passed  away   God  decrees,    on   the  petition   of 
"the  silly  sailor-folk,"  that  the  ocean  remain  undestroyed, 
in  order  that 

"  Such  as  have  no  pleasure 
For  to  praise  the  Lord  by  measure, 
They  may  enter  into  galleons  and  serve   Him  on  the  sea.'' 
"One    of     the    purest    examples    since     Coleridge's 
wondrous   «Rime'  of  the  imaginatively  grotesque."  — 
E.   C.   Stedman. 
[^SLast  Rhyme  of  True  Thomas.      {The  Seven  Seas.) 
—  An  experiment  in  old  ballad-form.      In  its  archaic  setting 
it  holds  an  eternal  truth  :  the  spiritual  insight  which  belongs 
to  a  seer  or  poet  is  greater  than  any  material  wealth  or 
power.     True  Thomas  says  scornfully  to  the  king  : 


134  A  Kipling   Primer 

"  I  ha'  harpit  ye  up  to  the  Throne  o'  God, 

I  ha'  harpit  your  secret  soul  in  three  ; 

I  ha'  harpit  ye  down  to  the  Hinges  o'  Hell, 

And — ye — would — make — a  Knight  o'  me  !  " 
Last  Suttee,    The.      (Ballads.)  — The    story    of   a 
queen   who,    disguised  as   the  king's  favorite  dancing-girl, 
sought  death  at  the  funeral  pyre  of  her  lord. 
\S  Law  of  the  Jungle,  The.      A  poem  following  "  How 
Fear  Came  "  in  the  Second  Jungle  Book.      It  purports  to 
be  a  translation  into  verse  of  some  of  the  laws   applying  to 
the  wolves.      The  concluding  couplet  is  : 
"  Now  these  are  the  Laws  of  the 

Jungle,  and  many  and  mighty  are  they  ; 
But  the  head  and  the  hoof  of  the 

Law  and  the  haunch  and  the  hump  is  —  Obey  !  " 
Legend  of  Evil,  The.  (Ballads.')  —  A  farcical  poem 
in  two  parts,  explaining  how  the  first  monkeys  who  became 
men  were  forced  to  leave  off  their  friskiness  and  descend  to 
hard  labor,  and  also  how  Noah  unwittingly  let  the  devil 
into  the  ark  at  the  same  time  with  the  donkey. 

"  One  of  the  most  delightful  bits  of  humorous  verse 
in  the  language."  — Book  Buyer. 
L' Envoi  (to  Barrack-Room  Ballads).  —  A  lyric  in 
which  the  idea  of  a  home  voyage  to  England  is  employed 
as  the  thread  on  which  to  string  larger  imaginative  sugges- 
tions. It  is  richly  musical,  and  the  chorus  has  a  rhythm 
like  that  of  waves.  There  is,  perhaps,  an  overplus  of 
nautical  words. 

L' Envoi  (to  Life's  Handicap).  —  One  of  the  most 
nobly  devout  of  Kipling's  poems.  A  prayer  to  the  "  Great 
Overseer." 


Index   to  Writings  135 

"  One  instant's  toil  to  Thee  denied 
Stands  all  eternity's  offence." 
,' Envoi  (to  The  Seven  Seas),  beginning  "  When  Earth's 
last  picture  is  painted,  and  the  tubes  are  twisted  and  dried," 
is  one  of  Kipling's  finest  lyrics.  It  embodies  his  healthy 
gospel  of  work  and  furnishes  more  than  one  hint  as  to  his 
religious  faith. 

U^^Envoi  (to  The  Story  of  The  Gads by s.)  —  A  poem 
concluding  the  series  of  Gadsby  stories  and  emphasizing 
their  somewhat  cynical  moral  :  A  soldier  married  is  a 
soldier  marred. 

''White  hands  cling  to  the  tightened  rein, 
Slipping  the  spur  from  the  booted  heel, 
Tenderest  voices  cry,  *  Turn  again, ' 

Red  lips  tarnish  the  scabbarded  steel, 
High  hopes  faint  on  a  warm  hearthstone    — 
He  travels  the  fastest  who  travels  alone." 
Letters  of    Marque.      (See   From    Sea    to    Sea.) 
Letting   in  the  Jungle.      (Second  Jungle    Book.)  — 
The  villagers  who  had  cast  out  Mowgli  sent   one  of  their 
number  to  follow  and  kill   this  "devil-child."      They   also 
determined   to  torture  and  burn  to  death   Messua  and  her 
husband.      The  boy  easily   escaped,   but  the  rescue  of  his 
reputed  parents  presented  difficulties.      Mowgli,    however, 
succeeded  in  putting  them   on  their  way  to  a   town  thirty 
miles  distant  by  jungle -trail.      Then  came  the  Revenge.   It 
was  nothing  less   than   a   blotting-out  of  the   village  and  a 
driving-off  of  the  inhabitants.     Mowgli' s  four-footed  allies, 
led  by  Hathi,  the  elephant,  carried  out  the   work  of  de- 
struction.     By  the  end  of  the  Rains  the  jungle  covered  the 
spot  that  had  been  under  plough  a  few  months  earlier. 


136  A   Kipling   Primer 


\y< 


'*  That  fine  poem  of  *  Letting  in  the  Jungle  '  .  .  . 
is  it  not  a  drama  of  secular  antagonism  of  nature  and 
man  ?  "  —  Athenceum. 

"  Lie  still,  lie  still  !  O  earth  to  earth  return- 
ing.' '  —  The  first  line  of  a  poetical  dialogue  between  the 
pines  of  the  Simla  cemetery  and  the  occupants  of  the 
graves.      ("Mrs.  Hauksbee  Sits    Out.") 

Light  that  Failed,  The. — (Published  Philadelphia 
and  London,  1891.)  Two  orphan  wards  of  a  Pharisai- 
cally-religious and  sour-tempered  woman  (the  counterpart  of 
"Aunty  Rosa"  in  "Baa,  Baa,  Black  Sheep")  were  warmly 
attached  to  one  another  in  childhood  —  drawn  together 
by  loneliness  and  by  common  defiance  of  their  guardian's 
tyranny.  In  a  few  years  their  paths  separated.  Dick  be- 
came an  artist  and  went  to  the  Soudan  with  the  Gordon 
relief  expedition  to  make  illustrations  for  the  English 
papers.  Maisie  also  studied  art,  and  opened  a  studio  in 
London.  On  coming  back  to  England,  Dick  brought  with 
him  a  well-earned  reputation,  an  unconquerable  love  for  the 
girl,  and  a  sword-cut  on  his  head,  received  in  action. 
Maisie  lacked  talent,  but  thirsted  for  fame,  and  heartlessly 
sacrificed  Dick  to  her  ambition.  Dick's  head-wound, 
meanwhile,  was  seriously  affecting  the  optic  nerve  ;  he  went 
totally  blind  just  as  he  had  finished  his  masterpiece,  Mel- 
ancholia, "  the  likeness  of  a  woman  who  had  known  all 
the  sorrow  in  the  world  and  was  laughing  at  it."  But 
Bessie  Broke,  the  model  who  had  posed  for  him,  vindic- 
tively ruined  the  canvas  and  ran  off  with  her  liberal  pay,  in 
revenge  for  Dick's  interference  in  her  love-affair  with  Tor- 
penhow,  a  war  correspondent,  whose  acquaintance  he  had 
made  in  the  East.  Maisie,  who  was  now  once  more 
studying  in  Paris,  was  informed   by  Torpenhow  of  Dick's 


Index  to  Writings  137 

blindness,  but  she  proved  more  unwilling  than  ever  to  de- 
vote herself  to  him.  Dick,  heart-broken,  went  again  to 
the  Soudan,  where  fighting  was  in  progress  between  British 
and  native  troops,  and,  seated  on  a  camel,  insisted  on  being 
placed  in  the  front  of  the  fighting-line.  A  welcome  bullet 
ended  his  life.  In  the  Lippincott  Magazine  version,  Mai- 
sie  proves  faithful  to  Dick,  and  the  story  ends  happily. 
The  present  denouement,  however,  is  the  more  logical,  and 
the  one  preferred  by  Mr.  Kipling,  who  prefaces  the  book 
with  the  statement :  "  This  is  the  story  of  The  Light  that 
Failed  as  it  was  originally  conceived  by  the  writer."  The 
novel  has  powerful  passages,  and  some  of  its  descriptions 
are  in  Kipling's  strongest  manner,  but  it  lacks  interesting 
and  vigorous  characterization,  and  is  too  uniformly  depress- 
ing.     It  cannot  be  reckoned  among  his  masterpieces. 

"  A  very  uneven  book  ;  the  parts,  especially  the 
campaigning  scenes,  are  infinitely  better  than  the  whole. 
But  a  work  which  displays  the  same  graphic  power  of 
presentation,  the  same  condensed  vigor,  the  same  live- 
liness of  narrative,  that  characterized  the  slighter 
sketches,  is  necessarily  of  no  ordinary  kind.  The  can- 
vas is  larger  $  it  is  filled  with  more  figures  ;  its  back- 
ground is  more  extended.  But  none  of  the  work  is 
slurred  or  shirked.  It  is  firm,  clear,  and  strong.  .  .  . 
On  the  other  hand,  the  book  exhibits  a  fault  to  which 
Mr.  Kipling  is  always  inclined.  It  is  needlessly  hard 
and  gratuitously  brutal."  —  Edinburgh  Review ',  1891. 
"It  is  hardly  a  story  so  much  as  a  succession  of 
scenes  and  conversations,  mostly  among  press  men  and 
newspaper  correspondents,  who  talk  entirely  in  slang  of 
the  most  audacious  type,  and  seems  to  have  been  in- 
tended partly  as  a  vehicle  for  conveying  the  writer's  opin- 
ions on  art  and  society,  for  it  is  pretty  evident  that  the 


138  A   Kipling   Primer 

hero  of  the  story  is  to  a  great  extent  the  author's 
mouthpiece.  There  are  brilliant  pages  in  it,  but  we 
should  say  that  little  trouble  went  to  the  writing  of  it, 
and  that  it  is  flung  together  rather  than  composed. ' '  — 
Edinburgh  Review ',  1898. 

"  Although  The  Light  that  Failed  runs  only  to  a 
volume,  it  is  one  of  those  novels  which  threaten  to 
break  down  at  the  end  of  every  chapter.  It  has  few 
personages,  and  its  incidents  may  be  reckoned  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand.  Take  away  the  conversations 
which  do  not  help  on  the  story,  and  it  would  shrink  to 
less  than  a  hundred  pages.  .  .  .  The  Light  that  Failed 
is  a  dish  of  highly-seasoned  fragments,  served  up  with 
a  deal  of  sarcastic  commentary  on  life  as  it  is  lived  in 
Bohemia. ' '  —  Quarterly. 

"  The  Light  that  Failed  is  an  organic  whole —  a 
book  with  a  backbone  —  and  stands  out  boldly  among 
the  nerveless,  flaccid,  invertebrate  things  called  novels 
that  enjoy  an  expensive  but  ephemeral  existence  in  the 
circulating  libraries.' '  — Athenaeum. 

For  a  severe  and  extended  criticism  of  The  Light 
that  Failed  see  Mr.  Kipling's  Stories,  J.  M.  Barrie, 
Contemporary  Review,  March,  1891. 

Limitations  of  Pambe  Serang.      (Life's  Handicap.) 

A  Zanzibar  stoker,  when  in  drink,  did  an  injury  to  Pambe, 
a  Malay  employed  on  the  same  steamer.  The  latter  re- 
fused to  accept  the  apology  of  the  negro,  and  lived  with 
the  one  thought  of  revenge.  From  country  to  country 
Pambe  tracked  his  enemy  until  finally  the  former  fell  ill  in 
London.  While  still  in  his  bed  he  recognized  Nurkeed's 
voice  in  the  street  and  induced  the  missionary  seated 
beside  him  to  call  the  negro  in.  The  latter,  when  lean- 
ing over   the    sick  man,  received  a    knife-thrust  under  the 


Index  to  Writings  139 

edge  of  his  rib  bone.  Pambe  recovered  sufficiently  to  be 
hanged. 

{/"  Liner  She's  a  Lady,  The."  (The  Seven  Seas.) 
—  While  the  Liner  has  the  Man-o'-War  for  husband,  and 
proves  her  ladyhood  "by  the  paint  upon  'er  face,"  the 
little  cargo-boats  which  have  "  to  load  or  die  "  are  Eng- 
land's pride  and  the  source  of  her  "  'ome  an'  foreign 
trade. ' ' 

k  Lispeth.      (Plain   Tales.)  — Illustrates  the  truth  that  a 

mere  dab  of  Christianity  is  insufficient  to  "  wipe  out  unciv- 
ilized Eastern  instincts."  Lispeth,  a  beautiful  hill  girl, 
grows  to  womanhood  in  a  Christian  mission.  But  she 
meets  and  falls  violently  in  love  with  a  visiting  Britisher 
whose  flirtation  she  takes  to  be  a  serious  expression  of  love. 
When  he  leaves  he  promises  to  return  and  marry  her,  and 
the  missionary,  hoping  thus  to  quiet  her,  encourages  the 
deception.  The  girl,  on  finally  learning  that  she  has  been 
played  with,  loses  all  faith  in  the  new  religion  and  modes  of 
life,  and  returns  to  her  mother's  gods  and  the  degraded 
habits   of  her  caste. 

Little  Tobrah.  (Life's  Handicap.)  —  The  smallpox 
struck  little  Tobrah's  village,  took  away  his  parents,  and 
left  the  sister  blind.  The  small  property  left  the  three 
children  was  soon  lost.  A  famine  rose,  the  older  brother 
deserted  them,  and  the  young  boy  and  girl  were  unable  to 
get  food.  Finally,  on  coming  to  a  well,  Tobrah  thrust  his 
sister  in,  believing  it  "  better  to  die  than  to  starve."  On 
the  discovery  of  the  dead  body  little  Tobrah  was  brought 
to  trial,  but  since  there  were  no  witnesses  he  was  acquitted. 

^  /Loot.  (Ballads.)  — A  frank  expression  of  opinion  by 
Tommy  Atkins.      He  wholly  fails  to  understand 


140  A   Kipling   Primer 

"  Why  lootin'  should  be  entered  as  a  crime. 

So  if  my  song  you'll  'ear,  I  will  learn  you  plain  an'  clear 

'Ow  to  pay  yourself  for  fightin'  overtime." 

Lost  Legion,  The.  (Many  Inventions.') — It  is  not 
easy  to  manage  one  ghost,  as  any  story -writer  will  admit, 
but  to  write  of  a  whole  ghostly  regiment  would  overtax  the 
powers  of  any  living  man  of  genius  except  Mr.  Kipling. 
Even  in  his  hands  it  would  be  merely  grotesque  were  it 
not  so  carefully  subordinated  to  the  blood-and-flesh  main 
plot,  which  relates  to  the  capture  by  a  frontier  force  of 
British  of  a  notorious  Afghan  outlaw  with  thirteen  brother 
murderers.  The  story  of  the  secret  journey  by  night  to 
the  latter 's  lair  in  the  hills  is  admirably  told. 

"  Mr.  Kipling's  best  war-piece.' '  —  Blackwoods. 

/"  A  splendid  ghost  story."  — Academy. 
Lost  Legion,   The.      (Ballads.') — A   rollicking    song 
of  the    "Gentlemen  Rovers" — a  "Legion    that   never 
was  'listed." 

"Love-o'-Women."  (Many  Inventions.)  —  Larry 
Tighe,  nicknamed  Love-o' -Women,  was  a  handsome  man 
when  Mulvaney  first  knew  him,  but  "  wicked  as  all  hell." 
His  favorite  amusement  was  that  of  seducing  innocent 
women.  When  next  they  met,  Love-' o- Women  was  suf- 
fering damning  tortures  of  remorse.  The  faces  of  his  vic- 
tims rose  before  him  to  make  his  nights  sleepless  and  his 
days  insufferable.  But  the  crown  of  his  punishment  was 
the  memory  of  one  woman  whom  he  might  have  loved,  but 
whom  he  had  ruined  and  cast  away.  The  dramatic  end- 
ing of  the  tale  makes  the  man  discover  this  former  sweet- 
heart and  die  in  her  arms.  She  completes  the  tragedy  by 
committing  suicide. 


Index   to  Writings  141 


"  Perhaps  the  most  powerful  story  in  the  book  is  the 
one  called  ■  Love-o'- Women. '  As  a  picture  of  true 
remorse  it  is  most  impressive.  ...  It  certainly 
shows  Mr.  Kipling  at  his  highest  point  of  literary 
power."  — Spectator. 

"The  best  of  them  all  \i.e.t  stories  mMany  Inven- 
tions], to  our  mind,  is  '  Love-o'- Women,'  which  is, 
indeed,  one  of  the  most  masterly  things  its  author  has 
yet  done.  .  .  .  It  is  worth  a  hundred  addresses 
on  Social  Purity  platforms  ;  and  yet  it  is  written  with 
an  artistic  reticence  which  is  beyond  all  praise/''  — 
Athenaeum. 
Lukannon.  — A  poem  of  six  stanzas  following  "The 
White  Seal  "  in  the  Jungle  Book.  It  is  "a  sort  of  very 
sad  seal  national  anthem,"  ending  with  the  line  : 
"The  beaches  of  Lukannon  shall  know  their  sons  no  more. " 
Madness  of  Private  Ortheris,  The.  (Plain  Tales.) 
—  Ortheris  becomes  homesick  for  London,  "sick  for  the 
sounds  of 'er,  an'  the  sights  of  'er,  and  the  stinks  of  'er. " 
He  questions,  "  Wot's  the  good  of  sodjerin',"  and  goes 
so  far  as  to  don  citizen's  clothes  and  attempt  desertion. 
By  the  time  dusk  shuts  down,  however,  Ortheris  has 
returned  penitently  to  his  companions.  His  loneliness,  the 
strangeness  of  his  garb,  and  the  force  of  the  old  habits,  have 
cured  his  madness. 

Maltese  Cat,  The.  (Day's  Work.)  —  The  story 
of  a  polo-pony  whose  intelligence  and  quickness  won  the 
great  game  between  the  Archangels  and  the  Skidars.  The 
description  of  the  contest  is  exceedingly  spirited.  As  in 
"Her  Majesty's  Servants  "  and  "A  Walking  Delegate," 
we  are  regaled  with  the  conversation  of  horses. 


142  A   Kipling   Primer 

"  It  goes  splendidly,  and  entitles  its  author  to  rank 
with  the  very  small  band  who  have  described  athletic 
games  in  progress  without  losing  most  of  their  thrill  and 
movement."  —  AthencEum. 

"  *  The    Maltese    Cat,'    that    delightful    polo   story 
(every  polo  player  should  know  it  by  heart)  where  the 
animals  give  us  their  version  of  the  game.""  —  Academy. 
««  Something  rather  better  than  excellent  descriptive 
journalism.'"  — Spectator. 
Man  who  Was,  The.      {Life's  Handicap.}  — A  former 
officer  in  the  White  Hussars,  who  has  been  for  thirty  years 
a  Russian  captive,  escapes  from  Siberia  and  succeeds  in  dis- 
covering his  regiment.      The  limp  heap  of  rags  is  crawling 
past  the  sentries,  when  he  is    shot  at  for  a  carbine-thief, 
Brought  in  through  a  mistake  to  the  mess-table,  where  the 
officers  are  entertaining  a   Russian  guest,  and   toasting  Her 
Majesty,  he  exhibits  his  shrinking  dread  of  the  Cossack,  his 
undying   loyalty  to   the   Queen,  and   awful  evidence  of  his 
tortures.      The  wretched  man  dies  shortly  after. 

"  For  pathos  rising  into  tragedy  and  as  curious, 
strange,  and  unexpected  as  it  is  touching,  choose  *  The 
Man  who  Was.'  "  — Boston  Transcript. 

"  That  glorious  masterpiece,  *  The  Man  who 
Was.'  "  —  Gentleman" s  Magazine. 

"  '  The   Man  who  Was,'    an   admirable  story,   full 
of  that  indefinable  spirit,  military  patriotism,  and  regi- 
mental pride."  — Academy. 
Man   who  would    be    King,   The.      {Phantom   'Rick- 
shaw,   etc. )  —  Two    shrewd   adventurers,    Daniel    Dravot 
and    Peachey    Camehan,    decide     that    India    isn't     large 
enough  for  them,  and   aspire  to  become  rulers  of  Kafristan. 
Disguised   as  a  mad   priest,  Dravot,  taking  Carnehan  with 


Index   to  Writings  143 

him  as  a  servant,  makes  his  way  safely  to  the  prospective 
kingdom.  Dravot  gains  unlimited  power  over  the  native 
tribes,  who  think  him  a  god  and  give  him  a  gold  crown. 
Another  is  made  for  his  companion,  and  they  rule  their 
new  empire  jointly.  Finally  Dravot  blunders  by  demand- 
ing a  wife.  The  wench  allotted  to  him  puts  his  godhood 
to  test  by  biting  him.  On  seeing  his  blood  the  people 
pronounce  him  an  impostor,  subject  him  to  a  cruel  death 
and  Carnehan  to  fearful  tortures.  The  latter,  wrecked  in 
body  and  mind,  lives  to  reach  India,  carrying  the  head  of 
Dravot  in  a  bag. 

A  number  of  eminent  literary  men  in  an  informal 
gathering  "  resolved  to  write  out,  each  for  himself,  a 
list  of  the  best  half-dozen  of  Mr.  Kipling's  short 
stories,"  so  Mr.  S.  R.  Crockett  has  informed  the  readers 
of  the  Bookman.  i  The  papers  were  folded.  They 
were    put    into    the    hat.  <  The    Man    who 

would   be   King  '    stood  proudly  at  the  head  of  every 
list." 

"  For  «  The  Man  who  would  be  King,'  our  author's 
masterpiece,  there  is  no  word  but  magnificent. 
Positively,  it  is  the  most  audacious  thing  in  fiction,  and 
yet  it  reads  as  true  as  Robinson  Crusoe.  "  —  y.  M. 
Barrie. 

Mandalay.  (Ballads.) — A  British  soldier,  now  in 
London,  hears  "the  East  a-callin',"  and  grows  homesick 
for  the  familiar  sights  and  sounds  on  the  road  to  Mandalay. 
"  For  the  wind  is  in  the  palm-trees,  and  the   temple-bells 

they  say, 
*  Come  you  back,  you  British  soldier ;   come  you  back  to 

Mandalay!  '  " 

This  is  probably  Kipling's  most  widely  known  ballad. 


144  A   Kipling   Primer 


"A  work  of  very  high  art    indeed."" — Saturday 
Review. 

«'  A  wonderful  song  of  the  fascination  of  the  East." 
—  Edinburgh  Review. 
Mark  of  the  Beast,  The.  {Life's  Handicap.')  — 
Fleete,  an  Englishman,  grossly  insulted  a  native  idol  in  its 
temple.  Whereupon  a  hideous,  faceless  leper  employed  in 
the  service  of  the  god  sprang  out  at  the  man,  and  catching 
him  about  the  body,  dropped  his  head  on  the  victim's 
breast.  The  terrible  disease  that  overtook  the  latter  in 
consequence  seemed  not  to  be  leprosy,  but  a  madness  more 
awful  than  hydrophobia,  though  closely  resembling  it.  Its 
growth,  symptoms,  and  final  cure  are  described  with  terri- 
ble power.  For  pure  horror,  this  tale  is,  perhaps,  unmatched 
in  English  literature. 

"In  «  The  Mark  of  the  Beast'  Mr.  Kipling  passes, 
as  he  occasionally  does,  the  bounds  of  decorum,  and 
displays  a  love  of  the  crudely  horrible  in  its  disgusting 
details  .  .  .  which  is  to  be  deprecated  ;  but  the 
fascination  of  the  story  is  incontestable."  —  Athenceum. 
"  '  The  Mark  of  the  Beast '  may  be  curious,  but  is 
also  loathsome,  and  shows  Mr.  Kipling  at  his  very 
worst. ' '  —  Spectator. 

"  As  a  tale  of  sheer  terror,  «  The  Mark  of  the  Beast' 
could  not  easily  be  surpassed."  — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 
Mary  Gloster,  The.  (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  A  dis- 
agreeable but  intensely  real  character  study.  Sir  Anthony 
Gloster,  Philistine  and  millionaire  ship-owner,  holds  conver- 
sation on  his  death-bed  with  his  only  son,  Dickie.  The 
old  man  reveals  both  his  ingrained  vulgarity  and  also  his 
complete  incapacity  to  appreciate  his  son's  artistic  and  liter- 
ary tastes,  which  are  to  the  Baronet  merely  t(  whims  "  and 
"  sick  fancies." 


Index  to  Writings  145 

"  <  The  Mary  Gloster,'  though  somewhat  too  risque 

virginibus  puerisque,   is  a  piece  of  rare  power."  — 

Henry  Austin  in  Dial. 

Mary,  Pity   Women  !      {The  Seven  Seas.) — A  bitter 

protest  addressed  to  a  faithless  lover  by  the  woman  whom 

he  has  ruined. 

Matter  of  Fact,  A.  (Many  Inventions.) — Three 
newspaper  men,  an  American,  a  Dutchman,  and  the  author, 
were  the  only  passengers  on  a  little  tramp  steamer.  When 
in  mid-ocean  they  had  a  narrow  escape  from  wreck  by 
reason  of  a  tidal  wave  thrown  up  by  a  volcano.  In  the 
resulting  commotion,  a  great  sea-serpent  came  to  the  sur- 
face to  die,  and,  as  the  carcass  sank,  the  loathsome  mate 
swam  round  and  round  it,  and  disappeared.  The  Ameri- 
can, on  recovering  his  nerve,  was  for  cabling  this  biggest 
scoop  on  record  to  the  New  York  World.  He  was  dissuaded 
by  the  Englishman,  who  wished  to  appropriate  it  to  his  own 
use  as  fiction.  This  sketch  contains  some  sharp  satire  on 
American  journalism,  but  is  chiefly  notable  for  its  almost 
Shakespearian   description   of  the   serpent's   death. 

"  An  astonishing  story.     .     .    .     Perfectly  successful 
and  convincing."  — Academy. 

"To  our  mind  the  most  striking  of  the  new  tales  in 
the  present  volume.'"  — Saturday  Review  (in  review 
of  Many  Inventions,  June  17,  1893). 
"  Almost  worthy  of  Poe."  —  Critic. 
McAndrew's  Hymn.      (Tbe  Seven  Seas.) — Wherein 
we  are  shown  the  heart  of  a  Scotch  engineer,  employed  on  a 
big  passenger  steamship.      He's  a  good   Calvinist,  but  very 
human.      And  his  sincerest  passion  is  for  his  engines.     One 
feels   that   McAndrew  echoes    Mr.    Kipling's  own  feelings 
when  he  exclaims  : 


146  A   Kipling   Primer 

"  Lord,  send  a  man  like  Robbie  Burns  to  sing  the  '  Song 
o'  Steam'  ! 

<«  It  is  too   lengthy  and  too  carelessly  written  to  hold 
its  ground  as  poetry.' '  — Edinburgh  Review. 

"  A   poem  of  surpassing  excellence  alike  in  concep- 
tion and  in  execution."  —  C.  E.  Norton  in  Atlantic. 
Men  that  Fought  at  Minden,   The.      ( The    Seven 
Seas.) — A    song    of  instruction    for  the    benefit    of  green 
recruits. 

Merchantmen,  The.  (Tbe  Seven  Seas.) — A  song 
of  London  "  sailormen  "  who  are  bringing  back  to  port  a 
cargo  gathered  "with  sweat  and  aching  bones."  They 
have  been  abroad  on  all  seas,  and  relate  wonderful  experi- 
ences. 

"  Mr.  Kipling  is  at  his  best  in  a  long  poem  with  a 
strong  subject.  *  The  Merchantmen '  is  among  his 
best  5  so  is  '  Mulholland's  Contract.'"  — Academy. 
Miracle  of  Purun  Bhagat,  The.  {Second  Jungle 
Book. )  —  A  high-caste  Brahmin,  with  university  degrees, 
renounced  wealth  and  office  to  become  a  barefoot  "  holy 
man"  carrying  a  begging  bowl.  As  the  mendicant 
crossed  an  Himalayan  pass  he  came  upon  a  deserted  shrine. 
"Here  shall  I  find  peace,"  he  said.  Immediately  below 
him  the  hillside  fell  away  for  1,500  feet,  and  in  the  valley 
huddled  a  village  of  stone-walled  houses.  His  days  and 
nights  of  contemplation,  shared  only  by  wild  animals  who 
grew  boldly  familiar,  were  finally  disturbed  by  a  landslide 
resulting  from  the  heavy  rains.  He  succeeded,  just  in  time, 
in  warning  the  villagers  of  their  danger.  The  manner  in 
which  the  hermit  had  accomplished  their  rescue  seemed  to 
the  village  folk  miraculous,  and  on  his  death,  which  followed 
from  exhaustion,  they  built  a  temple  to  mark  his  grave. 


Index  to  Writings  147 

Miracles,  The.  (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  In  this  remark- 
able little  poem  the  miracles  of  modern  science  —  cable, 
telegraph,  steam  locomotive,  etc.  —  are  very  imaginatively 
conceived  and  celebrated. 

Miss  Youghal's  Sais.  {Plain  Tales  J)  — When  Strick- 
land, the  Sherlock  Holmes  of  Kipling's  stories,  asked  Miss 
Youghal's  hand  in  marriage,  her  parents  refused  consent. 
The  lover,  used  to  many  disguises,  got  himself  up  as  a  native 
servant,  and  became  "attached  to  Miss  Youghal's  Arab." 
He  preserved  the  incognito  for  months.  Finally  when  a 
certain  general  who  had  taken  the  young  lady  for  a  ride 
persisted  in  a  disagreeable  flirtation,  Strickland  lost  patience 
and  in  the  most  fluent  English  threatened  the  offender  with 
punishment.  When  the  officer  had  learned  the  truth  he 
saw  the  humor  of  the  situation  and  pledged  the  couple  his 
assistance.  Through  his  influence  the  reluctant  consent  of 
the  girl's  parents  was  obtained,  and  the  story  ends  happily. 
uxIvIorning-Song  in  the  Jungle. — A  poem  beginning: 
"  One  moment  past  our  bodies  cast 
No  shadow  on  the  plain.' * 

It  occurs  in  "Letting  in  the  Jungle "  {Second  Jungle 
Book) ,  and  is  a  rendering  into  English  verse  of  a  song  sung 
by  the  wolves. 

Mother  o'  mine,  O  Mother  o'  mine  !  —  The  re- 
frain of  the  striking  verse-dedication  of  The  Light  that 
Failed. 

Mother-Lodge,  The.  ( The  Seven  Seas. )  —  The 
singer  longs  for  another  sight  of  his  Mother  Lodge,  where 
his  "  Brethren  black  an'  brown  "  —  men  of  all  faiths  and 
of  every  rank —  "  met  upon  the  Level  an'  parted  on  the 
Square." 


148  A   Kipling   Primer 


Moti  Guj —  Mutineer.  {Life's  Handicap.') — Moti 
Guj  was  the  elephant  and  drunken  Deesa  was  the  owner. 
They  quarrelled,  but  they  loved  each  other,  and  when 
Deesa  told  the  elephant  that  he  would  be  gone  for  ten  days 
and  that  Chihun  would  be  his  master  meanwhile  the  beast 
submitted  with  manifest  reluctance.  On  the  eleventh 
morning,  when  Deesa  failed  to  come  according  to  promise, 
Moti  Guj  mutinied,  refusing  to  work,  chasing  an  English 
planter,  and  showing  fight  generally.  The  story  proceeds 
to  describe  the  elephant's  vain  search  for  his  lord,  and  the 
great  joy  of  both  at  meeting  again,  when  Deesa,  who  had 
been  gorgeously  drunk,  finally  returned. 

"Except  in  its  sardonic  form,  humor  has  never  been 
a  prominent  feature  of  Mr.  Kipling's  prose.  I  hardly 
know  of  an  instance  of  it  not  disturbed  by  irony  or 
savagery,  except  the  story  of  '  Moti  Guj.'  " — Edmund 
Gosse,  Cent?try,  1891. 

Mowgli's  Brothers.  {Jungle  Book).  —  A  naked 
brown  baby,  lost  in  the  jungle,  is  rescued  by  a  wolf  from 
the  jaws  of  Shere  Khan,  the  tiger.  The  man-cub  is  borne 
to  a  cave,  and  there  suckled  and  cared  for  by  Mother  Wolf 
and  given  the  name  Movvgli,  or  the  Frog.  After  much 
discussion,  Mowgli  is  adopted  into  the  Pack  and  is  allowed 
to  run  with  them  and  to  share  their  life  unharmed.  Besides 
the  wolves,  he  has  for  friends  Baloo,  the  brown  bear,  and 
Bagheera,  the  panther.  But  Shere  Khan  remains  his  sworn 
enemy.  When  Mowgli  has  grown  to  boyhood  the  tiger's 
plot  against  his  life  is  foiled  through  the  lad's  boldness  and 
presence  of  mind,  but  he  is  forced  to  leave  the  Pack  and  to 
seek  a  dwelling  among  men. 

Mowgli's  Song. — This  is  the  song  that  Mowgli  sang 
at  the  council  rock  when  he  danced  on  Shere  Khan's  hide. 


Index   to  Writings  149 

It   is    written   in    irregular    unrhymed    lines,    and    follows 
"  Tiger!  Tiger!"   in  the    Jungle  Book. 
yMowcLi's     Song     against     People.  —  A     five  stanza 
poem  which  follows  "Letting  in  the  Jungle  "  in  the  Second 
Jungle  Book. 

Mrs.  Hauksbee  Sits  Out.  —  (Added  to  Under  the 
Deodars  in  the  Outward  Bound  edition.)  A  dramatic 
sketch,  scene  laid  in  Simla,  with  the  subtitle,  "An  Unhis- 
torical  Extravaganza."  Miss  May  Holt,  assisted  by 
Mrs.  Hauksbee,  eludes  the  vigilance  of  a  Puritanic  aunt 
and  attends  a  volunteer  ball.  Here  she  meets  her  lover,  a 
young  lieutenant.  The  aunt  follows,  furious,  but  is  at 
length  subdued  at  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  now  reenforced 
by  an  Irish  major  who  drags  her,  scandalized,  into  the 
waltz,  and  by  the  Viceroy  of  India  (in  Mrs.  Hauksbee's 
confidence),  who  affects  interest  in  the  good  lady's  mission- 
ary schemes.  Finally  May's  lover  himself  plays  a  success- 
ful part  in  the  taming  of  the  shrew,  and  the  comedy  ends 
propitiously. 

Mulholland's  Contract.  {The  Seven  Seas.) — A 
deck-hand  on  a  cattle-boat,  when  in  imminent  danger  of 
death,  made  a  contract  with  God  that  if  He  would  save 
his  life,  he  for  his  part  would  reform  and  "praise  his 
Holy  Majesty  till  further  orders  came."  The  sailor's  life 
was  spared,  and  acting  in  accordance  with  a  special  revela- 
tion, he  returned  to  the  cattle-boats  and  preached  the 
gospel  there.  He  writes  of  his  experience  as  an  evangel- 
ist. 

"As  profound  as  it  is  simple."" — Academy. 

See,  also,  "  The  Merchantmen." 
Mutiny  of  the  Mavericks,  The.     {Life's  Handicap.') 
—  A  Fenian  organization  in  America  sent  young  Mulcahy  to 


150  A  Kipling  Primer 

India  to  spread  sedition  in  an  Irish  regiment.  The 
"  Mavericks,"  who  were  perversely  loyal  to  the  Queen, 
although  willing  to  impress  Mulcahy  with  their  sympathy 
in  order  to  enjoy  the  unlimited  beer  he  furnished,  were  in 
reality  glad  when  a  chance  for  action  gave  them  an  excuse 
for  pressing  the  unwilling  recruit  into  the  front  of  the  battle 
line.  From  excessive  cowardice  he  passed  into  a  mood  of 
mad  bravery,  and  rushing  into  the  enemy's  ranks  died  on 
an  Afghan  knife. 

"  «  The   Mutiny  of  the  Mavericks'   and   '  Namgay 
Doola  '  are  pure  comedy.      .      .      .     Charmingly  good- 
natured  satires  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the  sister  isle.  — 
Athencetim . 
"  My  girl  she  give  me  the  go  onst."  — First  line  of 
the  song   sung  by    Ortheris   in   "  The   Courting   of  Dinah 
Shadd"  (q.v.). 

My  Lord  the  Elephant.  (Many  Inventions.')  — 
When  a  young  man  in  Cawnpore  Mulvaney  tamed  a 
furious  elephant  that  had  been  terrorizing  the  streets  and 
playing  havoc  with  a  carriage  shop.  Filled  with  whiskey 
and  bravado,  he  took  a  mad  ride  on  the  back  of  "  Ould 
Double  Ends,"  but  beat  him  at  last  into  submission. 
Years  afterwards,  when  one  of  the  gun-elephants,  who 
proves  to  be  our  former  acquaintance,  refused  to  trust  a 
troop-bridge  near  the  head  of  the  Tangi  Pass  and  kept  an 
impatient  army  waiting  on  his  pleasure,  Mulvaney  left  a 
hospital  cot  and  came  to  the  rescue.  The  Cawnpore  ele- 
phant recognized  his  old  tamer  and  responded  to  his  urging. 
"Perhaps  the  best  story  in  the  book"  [i.e.,  Many 
Inventions'] .  —  Spectator. 

"  *  My   Lord  the    Elephant '  is   pure,   unadulterated 
farce.      In  this  most    flamboyant,  most  coruscating  of 


Index  to  Writings  151 

yarns,  Mulvaney  comes  near  to  beating  (and  it  is  much 
to  say)  the  record   of  his  famous   «  Incarnation. '      His 
ride  on  the  infuriated  tusker  is  as  fine  as  that  of  Tarn  o' 
Shanter  himself."  — Atheneeum. 
My  Own  True  Ghost  Story.     {Phantom  'Rickshaw, 
etc. )  —  The  author  passed  a  night  in  a  dirty  little   dak- 
bungalow.      After  the  usual   ghost-story  overtures  of  rat- 
tling curtains  and  lamps    throwing    quaint    shadows,  there 
came  the  sound  of  a  game  of  billiards  in  the  room  adjoin- 
ing.     Now,  this   room  was    not  large   enough   to   hold    a 
billiard-table,  but  in  the  morning  it  was  discovered  that  the 
three  small  rooms  of  the   dak-bungalow    had  once    been  a 
single  apartment  which  was  used  as  a  billiard-room,    and 
that   (according   to  the  servant)    a  Sahib   had    died   there 
while  playing  the  game.      Here  surely  was  a  juicy  morsel 
for  the   Psychical    Research    Society.      But   disillusion    fol- 
lowed, and  a  good   mystery  was  spoiled  by  a  very  simple 
discovery. 

My  Sunday  at  Home.  {Day's  Work.)  —  A  guard 
called  out  at  each  compartment  of  an  English  railway  train  : 
"  Has  any  gentleman  here  a  bottle  of  medicine  ?  A  gen- 
tleman has  taken  a  bottle  of  laudanum  by  mistake."  By 
taken  he  meant  carried  off,  but  an  officious  American  doctor, 
supposing  that  some  passenger  had  swallowed  the  poison, 
rushed  up  to  a  very  drunk  and  boisterous  "  navvy  "  in  a  rear 
compartment,  dragged  him  upon  the  platform  of  the  station 
where  the  train  was  stopping,  and  dosed  him  heavily  with 
an  emetic.  The  results  were  highly  ludicrous,  not  to  say 
tragic. 

"  A  hash  of  fantastic  effects,  partially  redeemed  from 
extravagance  by  the  excellence  of  the  character  draw- 
ing." —  London  Daily  News. 


152  A   Kipling  Primer 

Naboth.  {Life's  Handicap.}  —  A  modern  version  of 
Naboth's  vineyard  from  the  point  of  view  of  Ahab,  and  in- 
cidentally "an  allegory  of  empire. "  Naboth  was  a  native 
who  began  his  acquaintance  with  the  author  by  begging. 
The  "  Protector  of  the  Poor  "  gave  him  a  rupee,  where- 
upon Naboth  craved  the  privilege  of  selling  sweetmeats 
near  the  house  of  his  benefactor.  It  was  granted,  and  the 
tale  deals  with  the  prosperous  dependent's  successive  in- 
roads on  the  shrubbery  of  the  Sahib.  Finally,  Naboth, 
with  his  mud  hut  surrounded  by  bamboo  network,  was 
banished.  The  summer-house  which  took  the  place  of 
Naboth's  hut  resembled  a  fort  on  the  author's  frontier, 
whence  he  thereafter  guarded  his  kingdom. 

Namgay  Doola.  {Life's  Handicap.)  —  In  a  little 
native  kingdom  in  the  Himalayas  there  was  one  subject  who 
refused  to  pay  taxes,  and  had  an  unpleasant  way  of  break- 
ing the  heads  of  all  who  interfered  with  him.  The  king, 
pondering  on  the  best  punishment,  asked  the  counsel  of  the 
author.  The  latter,  on  learning  that  this  red-haired  rebel 
was  the  son  of  Thimla  Dhula  (Tim  Doolan)  by  a  native 
wife,  advised  the  king  to  raise  him  to  a  position  of  honor  in 
the  army,  since  he  came  of  a  race  which  would  not  pay 
revenue,  but  which,  if  filled  with  words  and  favor,  would 
work  heroically.      The  advice  was  followed  with  successful 

results. 

See  "  The  Mutiny  of  the  Mavericks." 
1  Native-Born,  The.      {The  Seven  Seas.)  —  A    mag- 
nificent tribute  to  imperial  Britain  — 

"  To  the  last  and  the  largest  Empire, 
To  the  map  that  is  half  unrolled. ' ' 

1  By  "  the  Native-born  "  is  meant  the  man  of  English  ancestry 
who  is  born  outside  of  England. 


Index  to  Writings  153 

The  spirit  and  dash  of  the  final  chorus,  beginning 
**  A  health  to  the  Native-born  (Stand  up  !) 
We're  six  white  men  a-row," 
are  inimitable. 

Naulahka,  The  :  A  Story  of  West  and  East. 
[Collaborated  with  Wolcott  Balestier.  Appeared  serially 
in  Century  Magazine.  Published,  Heinemann,  1892  ; 
Macmillan,  1892.  The  title  (pronounced  Now-lah-ka, 
—  see  Critic,  Nov.  14,  1 89 1 )  means  the  nine-lakh-er, 
that  is  to  say,  the  thing  worth  nine  lakhs,  the  very  precious 
one.  "  Nine  lakhs  of  rupees  would  be  ^90,000,  if  the 
rupee  were  worth  two  shillings,  as  it  used  to  be  three 
decades  ago."  —  London  Literary  World,  quoted  in  Lit- 
erary News,  September,  1892.]  Nicholas  Tarvin  is  a 
hustling  Western  man  with  two  objects  in  life.  One  is  to 
win  the  hand  of  a  girl  who  has  rejected  him  in  order  to 
devote  herself  to  Zenana  mission  work.  The  other  is  to 
make  his  town,  Topaz,  Col.,  a  railroad  centre.  In  order 
to  bring  about  the  latter  end  he  gains  an  influence  over 
the  young  wife  of  the  President  of  the  "  Three  C.'s,"  — 
the  railroad  he  hopes  may  be  run  to  Topaz  instead  of  find- 
ing its  terminus  at  the  rival  town  of  Rustler,  fifteen  miles 
off, — and,  discovering  jewelry  to  be  the  woman's  secret 
passion,  he  promises  to  fetch  her  from  Rajputana  the  price- 
less necklace,  ''Naulahka,"  in  return  for  her  influence 
with  her  husband  in  behalf  of  his  scheme.  She  consents. 
Tarvin  leaves  for  India  with  his  double  prize  in  view,  and 
arrives  at  Rhatore  before  Kate  Sheriff,  his  recalcitrant 
sweetheart,  who  almost  cries  with  vexation  when  she  dis- 
covers that  even  half  the  earth's  circumference  fails  to  rid 
her  of  his  importunities.      The  rest  of  the  story  is  devoted 


154  A   Kipling   Primer 

to  the  young  man's  determined  effort  to  attain  the  necklace 
and  to  win  the  consent  of  Kate.      After  superhuman  cour- 
age   and    endurance    and    the  undergoing    of  enough   hair- 
breadth escapes  to  satisfy  any  adventurous  boy  he   succeeds 
in   both    objects.      The   girl,    discouraged    at    last    by    the 
break-down  of  her  hospital,  into  which  she  has  put  tireless 
work  and  interest,  yields  to  the  man's  solicitations.      The 
Naulahka,  in  deference  to  Kate's  sensitive  notions  of  honor, 
is  returned  to  its  owner,  after  a  terrible  struggle  on  the  part 
of  Tarvin.      When  it  becomes  clear  to   him   that  he  must 
choose  between  the  woman  he  loves  and  the  consummation 
of  a  selfish   purpose   he   hesitates  no    longer,   but   sacrifices 
one  of  his  two  great  ambitions  to   the  other,  and  returns  to 
America  with  his  bride.      The  interest  of  the  story  is    not 
in  the  character-drawing,  which  is  in  the  main  unreal  and 
featureless,  nor  in  the  double  plot,  which  is  somewhat  con- 
fusing and  ill-joined,  nor  in   the  style,  which  lacks    the  dis- 
tinction of  Kipling's  best  work.      The  interest  is  episodical. 
It  is  in  the  descriptions  of  audacious    intrigues,  of  amazing 
adventures,    of  Oriental   mysteries,    of  the    secrets    of  the 
Royal  Zenana,  —  descriptions  of  the  midnight  ride  when 
the    American    meets    the    bewitching    and     cruel    Gypsy 
Queen,  of  the  plots  against  the  young  prince's  life,  of  Tar- 
vin' s  escape  from  the  murderous  assault  of  the  gray  ape,  of 
the  ride  to  the  deserted  city.      These  wonders   may  tax 
credulity,    but    they   inevitably   hold    the    attention.      Per- 
haps, after  all,   the   most    distinguishing    excellence   of    the 
novel  lies  in  the  penetration  with  which  Mr.  Kipling  gets 
behind    the  native    consciousness    and   reveals   all  its   odd 
workings.      For  while  lacking  in  well-developed  studies  of 
character,  the   story   dazzles   us   with   occasional   flashes  of 


Index  to  Writings  155 

marvellous  intuition.  The  first  four  chapters,  devoted  to 
America,  are  only  indifferently  good,  but  as  soon  as  India 
is  reached  the  hand  of  Kipling  becomes  more  apparent  than 
that  of  his  collaborator,  and  the  East  is  made  actually  to  live 
before  us. 

"  A  story  which  brings  into  sudden  and  glaring  con- 
trast the  impenetrable,  unchanging  barbarism  of  the 
East  and  the  bran-new  civilization  of  the  West,  hardly 
less  barbaric,  less  reckless,  or  less  corrupt.  ...  It 
seems  to  us  that  collaboration  is  to  Mr.  Kipling  very 
much  what  the  admixture  of  water  is  to  champagne." 

—  Westminster  Review. 

"  Why  should  Mr.  Kipling  hamper  himself  with  a 
partner?  We  like  him  best  alone.  .  .  .  There 
is  no  one  but  Mr.  Kipling  who  can  make  his  readers 
taste  and  smell  as  well  as  see  and  hear  the  East  ;  and 
in  this  book    .      .      .    he  has  surely  surpassed  himself." 

—  Athenceum. 

'*  The  Naulahka  falls  far  below  the  standard  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  general  work.  .  .  .  One  cannot 
help  remarking  how  strangely  wanting  the  story  is  in 
Mr.  Kipling's  ordinary  conciseness,  strength  of  diction, 
and  directness  of  purpose.  .  .  .  The  Naulahka 
is  not  a  well-told  story  —  we  might  even  say  it  is  told 
extremely  ill.  There  is  a  want  of  unity  in  its  design, 
and  of  smoothness  in  its  progress.  .  .  .  The  plot 
is  not  a  good  one.  The  twofold  motive  of  Tarvin's 
pilgrimage  to  India  confounds  the  sympathy  of  the 
reader,  who  is  never  quite  sure  whether  it  is  the  Nau- 
lahka ...  or  the  love  of  Kate  which  is  upper- 
most in  the  hero's  mind.  Tarvin  himself  confounds  all 
sense  of  probability.  .  .  .  There  are  good  pas- 
sages in  the  book.  Every  now  and  then  we  are  glad 
to  recognize   Mr.    Kipling's    great  descriptive  powers, 


156  A   Kipling   Primer 

but  these  purple  patches  are  few  and  far 
between."  — Spectator. 
Of  those  Called.  (Soldiers  Three.) — A  story  told 
on  steamer-board  during  a  heavy  fog,  regarding  the  loss, 
during  just  such  a  fog,  of  a  lumbering  "tramp"  which 
was  rammed  by  an  English  iron-clad.  Three  half-drowned 
survivors  were  rescued  by  means  of  a  rope  thrown  them 
from  the  man-of-war.  About  half  an  hour  later  the  fog 
lifted. 

On  Greenhow  Hill.  (Life's  Handicap.)  —  Learoyd, 
the  Yorkshireman,  relates  the  romance  of  his  early  life. 
When  climbing  a  stone  wall  he  has  fallen  and  broken  his 
arm.  Carried  to  a  neighboring  house,  he  is  nursed  by  the 
daughter  of  the  family,  'Liza  Roantree,  with  whom  he 
falls  in  love.  He  is  influenced  to  renounce  his  rough  life 
and  to  join  the  Primitive  Methodists,  of  which  sect  'Liza 
is  a  member.  He  becomes  jealous  of  the  chapel  minister, 
who  also  loves  'Liza.  But  Death  foils  both  lovers  ;  after  a 
rapid  decline  the  girl  dies.  Before  her  death  Learoyd 
learns  that  he  would  have  been  the  favored  suitor.  He 
goes  at  once  into  the  army,  and  has  been  trying  to  forget 
her  ever  since. 

"One  of  Kipling's  very  best  efforts. "  — National 
Observer. 

For  a  more  conservative  estimate,  see  Mr.  Gosse's 
article  in  the  Century,  1 8  9 1 . 
On  the  City  Wall.  (In  Black  and  White.) — An 
Oriental  Delilah  has  a  house  upon  the  east  wall  of  a  city  in 
India.  The  author  (or  narrator,  writing  in  the  first  per- 
son) is  drawn  into  the  pretty  creature's  toils,  and  becomes 
her  tool  in  helping  an  important  political  prisoner,  who  has 
taken  refuge  in  her  apartments,  to  escape  from  the  town,  on 


Index  to  Writings  157 


the  occasion  of  a  great  riot  between  Hindus  and  Mussul- 
men  in  the  city  streets.  The  marvellous  description  of  this 
riot,  the  picture  of  Lalun's  beauty  and  fascination,  and  the 
analysis  of  the  character  of  Wali  Dad,  the  youthful  cynic, 
once  a  Mohammedan  but  now  a  "  Demnition  Product," 
whom  the  riot  sweeps  back  into  the  fanatical  current  of  the 
faith  once  abandoned,  unite  to  make  this  story  one  of  extra- 
ordinary interest  and  power. 

"  A  masterpiece/'  —  Quarterly. 

See  "  At  Twenty-two." 
On  the  Strength  of  a  Likeness.  (Plain  Tales.')  — 
A  youth  who  had  cherished  an  unrequited  attachment,  be- 
came devoted  to  another  woman,  simply,  as  he  thought,  on 
the  strength  of  her  remarkable  likeness  to  his  lost  sweet- 
heart. He  found  out  too  late  that  he  had  come  to  worship 
her  for  her  own  qualities. 

One  View  of  the  Question.  (Many  Inventions.)  — ■ 
A  high-caste  Mussulman  writes  a  long  letter  to  an  intimate 
in  India  describing  life  in  London,  where  he  has  gone  on  a 
commission  for  His  Highness  the  Rao  Sahib  of  Jagesur. 
English  life  is  looked  at  from  a  severely  Oriental  point  of 
view.  "  This  town,  London,  which  is  as  large  as  all  Jag- 
esur, is  accursed,  being  dark  and  unclean,  devoid  of  sun, 
and  full  of  low-born,  who  are  perpetually  drunk,  and  howl 
in  the  streets  like  jackals,  men  and  women  together." 
The  Government  is  scored,  on  various  grounds,  with  Gulli- 
verian  satire. 

"  An  exceedingly,  strong,  thoughtful,  and  interesting 

satire. "  —  Saturday  Review. 

Only  a  Subaltern.      (  Under  the  Deodars. )  —  Bobby 

Wicks,  the  apple  of  his  father's  eye,  had  not  long  been  a 

member  of  the  Tail  Twisters  before  proving  himself  one  of 


y 


158  A   Kipling   Primer 

the  most  popular  men  in  the  regiment.      When  the  cholera 
struck  the  camp  he  was  unremitting   in   his  services  to  the 
men,  especially  to  old  private  Dormer,  a  dirty,  drunken  fel- 
low, whose  one  virtue  was  his  love  for  Bobby.      As  a  result 
of  over-exposure  in  caring   for  Dormer,  the  boy  was  finally 
stricken  down  himself,  and  after  three   days'  struggle  died. 
"  Under  the  Deodars  has  one  redeeming  feature  — 
the    excellent    story   called    '  Only   a    Subaltern,1    with 
which    it    concludes.      We   have   read    nothing    of  the 
kind  so    good  since   Mrs.    Ewing's    Jackanapes . " — 
Athenceum. 
Oonts.      (Ballads.)  —  Mr.  Atkins  gives  his  opinion  as 
to  the  merits  and  defects  of  the  camel,  or  oont  : 
"  The  'orse  'e  knows  above  a  bit,  the  bullock's  but  a  fool, 
The  elephant's  a  gentleman,  the  battery-mule's  a  mule  ; 
But  the  commissariat  cam-u-el,  when  all  is  said  an'  done, 
'E's  a  devil  an'  a'  ostrich  an'  a'  orphan  child  in  one." 

Other  Man,  The.  (Plain  Tales.)  —  A  girl,  in  love 
with  a  young  officer  without  a  fortune,  was  married  by  her 
parents  to  a  rich  old  colonel.  The  Other  Man,  trans- 
ferred to  an  unhealthful  station,  became  ill.  The  woman's 
heart,  not  at  all  with  her  husband,  who  neglected  her,  was 
still  with  the  Other  Man.  Finally  the  latter  was  sent  up 
from  his  station  on  a  chance  of  recovery.  The  colonel's 
wife  went  to  meet  him.  When  she  found  him  he  was 
seated  on  the  back  seat  of  his  "tonga" — dead.  The 
long  up-hill  jolt  had  been  too  much  for  his  weak  heart-valve. 
The  sequel  is  even  more  tragic. 

See  "  At  the  Pit's  Mouth." 
Our  Lady  of  the  Snows.        (/.*.,     Canada.)   —  A 
poem  of  six  stanzas  contributed  to  the  London  Times  and 
written  after  the  publication  of  Laurier's  new  tariff  bill  in 


Index  to  Writings  159 

May,  1897.      It    takes  as   its  text  :    "  Last,  but    not  least 
(he  said),  we  give  to  the  people  the  benefits  of  preferential 
trade  with  the  mother-country."  —  New  Canadian  Tariff. 
The  poem  was  quoted  in  the  Critic,  May  15,  1897. 
"  A  nation  spoke  to  a  nation, 

A  queen  sent  word  to  a  throne  : 
Daughter  am  I  in  my  mother's  house, 

But  mistress  in  my  own. 
The  gates  are  mine  to  open 

As  the  gates  are  mine  to  close, 
And  I  set  my  house  in  order, 
Said  the  Lady  of  the  Snows.' ' 
"Our  little  maid  that  hath  , no  breasts."  —  First 
line  of  the  "Queen's  Song  from  Libretto  of  Naulahka,"  a 
striking  poem  prefixed  to  Chapter  Twenty  of  The  Naulahka. 
Out  of  India.      (See   Bibliography  of  First  Editions.) 
In  the  Critic  for  Nov.   9,  1895,  occurs  this  "Card  from 
Mr.   Kipling"  : 
"  To  the  Editors  of  the  Critic  : 

"  Will  you  permit  me  through  the  medium  of  your  columns 
to  warn  the  public  against  a  book  called  *  Out  of  India, ' 
recently  published  by  a  New  York  firm  ?  It  is  put  forward 
evidently  as  a  new  book  by  Rudyard  Kipling.  It  is  made 
up  of  a  hash  of  old  newspaper  articles  written  nine  or  ten 
years  ago,  to  which  are  added  moral  reflections  by  some 
unknown  hand.  It  appears,  of  course,  without  my  knowl- 
edge or  sanction,  is  a  common  '  fake, '  and  I  must  disclaim 
all  connection  with  it. 

"  Rudyard  Kipling. 
"Waite,  Vt.,  3  Nov.,  1895." 
Outsong,   The.       (Second  Jungle  Book.) — A  poem 


160  A   Kipling   Primer 

following  "The  Spring  Running"  in  the  Second  Jungle 
Book.  It  is  "  the  song  that  Mowgli  heard  behind  him  in 
the  jungle  till  he  came  to  Messua's  door  again."  Part  of 
this  farewell  song  is  uttered  by  Baloo,  part  by  Kaa,  part  by 
Bagheera,  part  by  all  three.  The  refrain  is:  "Jungle- 
Favor  go  with   thee  !  ' ' 

,  Over  the  edge  of  the  purple  down.  —  The  first 
line  of  "  the  Brushwood  girl's  ' '  song.  (See  "  The  Brush- 
wood Boy,"    The  Day's  Work.) 

Parade-Song  of  the  Camp  Animals.  — A  poem  follow- 
ing "  Her  Majesty's  Servants"  in  the  Jungle  Book.  Ele- 
phants of  the  Gun  Team,  Gun  Bullocks,  Cavalry  Horses, 
Screw-Gun  Mules,  and  Commissariat  Camels,  all  bear  a  part, 
and  the  final  chorus,  "  Children  of  the  Camp  are  we," 
etc.,   is  sung  by   all   the  beasts   together. 

Phantom  'Rickshaw,  The.  (The  Phantom  'Rickshaw 
and  Other  Tales. )  —  A  man  who  has  heartlessly  jilted  a 
faithful  woman  and  has  brutally  repulsed  all  her  pitiful 
appeals  for  kindness  is  pursued,  after  she  dies,  by  her 
ghost.  Wherever  he  goes  the  apparition  of  the  woman 
whom  he  has  killed,  seated  in  her  accustomed  'rickshaw, 
awaits  him  with  the  old-time  pleadings  and  remonstrances. 
His  death,  attributed  by  his  physicians  to  overwork,  is  in 
reality  the  result  of  this  strange  persecution.  This  excur- 
sion into  the  occult,  while  cleverly  enough  managed,  lacks 
the  originality  of  Kipling's  best  stories. 

"  Kipling's  deliberately  supernatural  tales,  from 
*  The  Phantom  '  Rickshaw  '  downwards,  impress  me  as 
distinct  failures. ' '  —  Francis  Adams  in  Fortnightly. 

The  Edinburgh  Review  (1891)  objected  to  this  tale, 
with  "  its  abrupt  intrusion  into  every-day  life  of  a 
crudely  material  supernaturalism." 


Index  to  Writings  161 

"  Guy  de  Maupassant  himself  has  hardly  surpassed 
« The  Phantom  'Rickshaw,'  by  which  I  have  been 
more  moved  and  haunted  than  by  any  other  of  Kipling' s 
stories. ' '  —  Louise  Chandler  Moulton. 


Pharaoh  and  the  Sergeant.  — A  poem  of  seven 
stanzas  contributed  to  McClure's  for  September,  1897, 
beginning  : 

"  Said   England  unto  Pharaoh,  '  I  must  make  a  man  of 
you 
That  will  stand  upon  his  feet  and  play  the  game  ; 
That  will   Maxim  his  oppressor  as  a  Christian  ought  to 
do.' 
And  she  sent  old  Pharaoh  Sergeant  Whatisname.,, 

Pig.  (  Plain  Tales. )  —  Pinecoffin  cheated  NafFerton  in 
a  horse-trade.  NafFerton  determined  to  get  even.  He 
informed  the  Government  that  he  had  a  scheme  for  feeding 
a  large  percentage  of  the  British  army  in  India,  at  a  great 
saving,  on  pig,  and  he  hinted  that  Pinecoffin  (who  was  in 
the  Civil  Service)  might  supply  him  with  the  necessary 
facts.  This  was  ordered,  and  Pinecoffin  was  trapped  into 
a  voluminous  correspondence.  NafFerton,  making  use  of 
some  parts  and  suppressing  others,  found  plausible  support 
for  his  complaint  of  inadequate  assistance.  Government 
and  press  united  in  censuring  Pinecoffin. 

Pit  that  they  Digged,  The.  (  Under  the  Deodars. )  — 
An  amusing  story  of  official  red  tape.  A  member  of  the 
Bengal  Civil  Service  lay  down  to  die  of  fever  ;  doctors 
gave  him  up  for  lost.  The  Government  "prepared, 
according  to  regulation,  a  brick-lined  grave."  But  on  the 
man's  sudden  recovery  the  question  rose,  "  Who  pays  the 
bill  ? ' '      The  yearly  accounts  were  made  up  ;  and  there 


1 62  A   Kipling   Primer 

remained  over,  unpaid  for,  one  grave  ;  cost,  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  rupees  fourteen  annas.  The  vouchers  for 
all  the  other  graves  carried  the  name  of  a  deceased  servant 
of  the  Government.  A  complicated  and  lengthy  corre- 
spondence followed  among  departments  and  commissions. 
Finally  the  question  was  unwittingly  settled  by  the  resur- 
rected man  himself.  He  died,  the  entry  was  passed  to 
"  regular  account,"  and  "  there  was  peace  in  India." 

Private  Learoyd's  Story.  (Soldiers  Three.)  —  A 
rich,  unprincipled  woman  bribes  Learoyd  to  capture  and 
deliver  to  her,  when  she  is  about  to  depart  for  the  season, 
a  neighbor's  dog,  whom  she  greatly  covets.  Mulvaney 
and  Ortheris,  on  being  let  into  the  secret,  wish  to  improve 
upon  the  plan  and  fetch  the  reward  at  smaller  risk.  The 
"  Canteen  Sargint's  "  dog,  almost  a  fac-simile  of  the  other, 
though  as  fiendish  in  temper  as  "Rip"  is  angelic,  is 
caught,  and  his  fur  painted  by  Ortheris  until  he  is,  to  the 
smallest  ring  on  his  tail,  a  perfect  copy.  The  money  is 
received,  and  the  cur,  shut  in  a  basket,  is  placed  in  the 
woman's  hands  at  the  railway  station.  The  three  conspir- 
ators divide  the  profits  of  their  rascality. 

"  Nothing  short  of  a  masterpiece."  —  Athenaeum-. 

Quiquern.  (Second  "Jungle  Book.)  —  The  story  of  a 
famine  in  an  Arctic  village  during  an  ice-locked  winter,  and 
of  the  final  rescue  from  starvation  brought  about  through 
the  courage  and  fortitude  of  Kotuko,  the  boy,  and  the 
sagacity  of  two  Esquimaux  dogs.  Kotuko  attributed  all 
the  credit  to  his   tornaq,   or  guardian  spirit. 

Recessional,  The. — A  poem  written  for  the  Queen's 
Jubilee  and  contributed  to  the  London  Times,  July  1 7, 
1 897.      A  page  editorial  on  the  "  Recessional ' '  in  the  Spec- 


Index  to  Writings  163 


tator    for    July    24,    1897,    is    entitled,    "Mr.    Kipling's 
Hymn." 

"  In  his  *  Recessional '  Mr.  Kipling  has  interpreted 
the  feeling  of  the  nation  with  an  insight  and  a  force 
which  are  truly  marvellous." — Spectator. 

"Probably  Kipling's  noblest  and  most  enduring 
poetic  achievement."  —  James  Lane  Allen. 

"  It  fell  upon  us  as  a  solemn  warning  that  sobered  a 
whole  empire.  ...  It  raised  the  ideals  of  all  our 
people. ' '  —  Sir  Walter  Besant. 

"  The  beginning  of  Mr.  Kipling's  leadership  —  for  he 
is  an  Anglo-Saxon  leader,  say  what  we  may  —  was  the 
*  Recessional.'  People  then  for  the  first  time  recog- 
nized that  an  eloquent  advocate  of  imperialism  and 
national  rectitude  was  continually  on  the  watch.  From 
that  time  there  have  been  in  the  public  mind  two  Kiplings 
—  Kipling  the  great  story-teller  and  Kipling  a  national 
stimulus  and  guide."  —  Academy. 
See  "  Hymn  Before  Action." 

Record  of  Badalia  Herodsfoot,  The.  (Many  In- 
ventions. )  —  Badalia  Herodsfoot  is  a  woman  of  the 
London  slums,  deserted  by  her  drunken  husband,  and  en- 
listed by  a  devout  young  curate  in  the  work  of  distributing 
relief  among  her  neighbors.  She  secretly  loves  the  curate, 
who  in  turn  is  in  love  with  Sister  Eva,  a  companion-worker 
from  his  own  social  class.  Badalia's  husband  finally 
returns,  drunk,  and  demanding  money.  On  the  woman's 
refusal  to  yield  the  sum  intrusted  to  her  keeping  by  the 
clergyman,  the  man  strikes  and  mortally  wounds  her.  The 
curate  and  Eva  are  summoned  to  Badalia's  death-bed.  The 
dying  woman  attempts  to  shield  her  husband,  and,  confess- 
ing with  regard  to  the  curate  that  she'd    "sooner  ha'  took 


164  A   Kipling   Primer 

up  with  'im  than  any  one,"  counsels  him  to  wed  Sister 
Eva.  Her  final  injunction  is,  "  Make  it  a  four-pound-ten 
funeral — with  a  pall." 

"  A  little  too  cynical  and  brutal  to  come  straight 
from  life." — Edmund  Gosse. 

"One  long  exemplification  of  the  gratuitously  brutal 
method."  — Edinburgh  Review. 

"  It  illustrates  Mr.  Kipling's  remarkable  power  of 
assimilating  new  details  of  local  color  and  dialect."  — 
Athenceum. 

"  Merely  a  very  clever  man's  treatment  of  a  land  he 
knows  little  of." — J.  M.  Barrie,  1891. 
Red  Dog.      {Second  Jungle  Book.)  — A  ferocious  pack 
of  dholes  or  red  hunting-dogs,   fiercer  even  than  wolves, 
have  set  out,  two  hundred  strong,  to  kill  the  jungle  people. 
Mowgli  successfully  carries  out  a   plan   devised   by    Kaa. 
The  enemy  is  lured  to  a  stream  in  the  banks  of  which  hive 
the    black    wild    bees   of  India,   who  attack  all  intruders. 
These  "  Little  People  of  the  Rocks  "    kill  several  of  the 
dholes,  and  as   the  remainder  strive  to  escape,    Mowgli' s 
knife    finishes    many,    and    his    companions    slay    the    rest. 
This  proves  to  be  the  last  fight  of  Akela,  the  "  Lone  Wolf," 
who  sings  the  death-song  and  falls  dead  at  Mowgli' s  feet. 
"  A   story  that  takes  one's  breath  away. 
The  narrative  is  so  powerful  and  original   in  its  manner 
that  hardly  a  hint  can  be  given  of  its  strength  and  qual- 
ity." —  Joel  Chandler  Harris. 
Reingelder  and  the  German  Flag.      {Life's  Handi- 
cap.)—  The  "German  Flag"    is   a  small   tropical  snake, 
so  named  because  of  its  coloring.      Breitmann,  a  German 
orchid  collector,   tells    the   story   of  Reingelder,    a   brother 
naturalist,  whose  hobby  was  coral-snakes.      It  was  in  Ura- 


Index  to  Writings  165 

guay  that  the  latter  received  from  a  native  the  gift  of  a  live 
"  German  Flag"  in  a  bottle.  Relying  on  what  he  sup- 
posed to  be  good  authority,  he  handled  the  snake  freely, 
supposing  that  its  bite  was  not  poisonous.  He  was  bitten 
and  died. 

"  An  admirable  piece  of  grotesque  humor.     .     .     . 

It   is   a   delightful    study  of  the    stolid  egotism   of  the 

middle-class  German  savant,  with  his  assumption  that 

every  one  is  ignorant  beside  himself."  —  Edinburgh 

Review. 

Rescue  of  Pluffles,   The.      (Plain   Tales.)  —  Pluf- 

fles,  a  callow  subaltern  of  four-and-twenty,  was  rescued  by 

Mrs.  Hauksbee  from  the  toils   of  Mrs.   Reiver  —  the  lady 

"  wicked  in  a  business-like  way  "  —  and  restored  to  his 

English    fiancee,    whom   in  his   infatuation  he  had   all   but 

given  over.      Mrs.  Hauksbee   kept  the  boy  under  her  wing 

till  "  both  the  *  I  wills '  had  been  said. "     After  his  marriage 

Pluffles  left  the  service  and  went  Home. 

Return  of  Imray,  The.  (Life' s  Handicap.)  —  Im- 
ray  mysteriously  disappeared.  His  bungalow  was  after  a 
time  rented  by  Strickland,  of  the  police.  On  overhauling 
the  ceiling-cloth  to  remove  some  troublesome  snakes  he  dis- 
covered the  corpse  of  Imray.  The  confession  was  at  last 
extorted  from  Bahadur  Khan,  the  native  servant,  that  he 
had  murdered  his  former  master  and  had  hidden  the  body. 
Threatened  with  hanging,  the  man  anticipated  justice  by 
allowing  one  of  the  snakes,  which  was  half  dead,  to  bite 
his  naked  foot. 

I/Rhyme  of  the  Three  Captains,  The.  (Ballads.) 
—  This  ballad  refers  ostensibly  to  one  of  the  exploits  of 
Paul    Jones,    the   American    pirate.      A   trading-brig,    hav- 


1 66  A  Kipling  Primer 

ing  sailed  "unscathed  from  a  heathen  port,"  is  "robbed 
on  a  Christian  coast,"  but  Jones'  privateer  succeeds  in 
evading  punishment  from  the  ships  of  the  fleet,  much  to 
the  skipper's  disgust. 

For  the  inner  allegorical  meaning  of  "  The  Rhyme 

of  the  Three  Captains  "  see  the  Harper  &  Brothers  vs. 

Kipling  controversy  in  Athenceum,  1890. 

Rhyme  of  the  Three    Sealers,    The.       ( The    Seven 

Seas.)   —  The    story,    in    swinging    ballad   measure,    of  a 

bloody  fight  between  the  crews   of  rival   poaching-vessels, 

which  meet    in   a  heavy  fog  on    the   sealing-grounds,   and 

battle  to  the  death. 

"  Magnificent."  —  Academy. 
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.  {Jungle  Book.)  — Relates  how 
a  mongoose,  the  pet  of  a  small  English  boy  in  India,  twice 
saved  the  lad's  life  and  once  the  lives  of  his  father  and 
mother.  The  fights  of  the  mongoose  (whose  name  gives 
the  title  to  the  story)  with  Karait,  the  little  brown  snake, 
with  Nag,  the  black  five-foot  cobra,  and  with  Nagaina,  the 
vicious  wife  of  Nag,  are  described  with  much  humor  and 
spirit. 

"  A  delicious  story."  —  Athenceum. 
"  Rikki  Tiklci,   though  only  a  mongoose,  fights  his 
way  gallantly  enough  into  the  list    of    Mr.    Kipling's 
immortals.      The  history  of  his  war  with  the  cobras  is 
entirely  delightful,   and    refuses  to   be  forgotten."    — 
Academy. 
Ripple  Song,   A.  —  A  poem,   notable   for   grace  and 
subtlety,    following    "The   Undertakers"    in    the    Second 
Jungle  Book. 

Road  Song  of  the   Bandar  Log.  —  An    amusing  song 


Index  to  Writings  167 

supposed  to  be  sung  by  the  Monkey  people.  It  begins, 
"  Here  we  go  in  a  flung  festoon/'  and  its  refrain  is, 
"  Brother,  thy  tail  hangs  down  behind."  These  stanzas 
follow  "  Kaa's  Hunting  "  in  the  Jungle  Book. 

Roses  Red  and  Roses  White.  —  First  line  of  the  poem 
"  Blue  Roses,"  which  is  prefixed  to  Chapter  VII.  of  The 
Light  that  Failed. 

Rout  of  the  White  Hussars,  The.  (Plain  Tales.) 
—  The  terrified  flight  of  the  Hussars  was  not  in  the  face 
of  the  enemy,  but  in  the  presence  of  the  regimental  drum- 
horse  (who  was  supposed  recently  to  have  died  and  been 
buried),  dressed  like  a  ghost,  and  bearing  on  his  back  a 
skeleton.  The  trick,  perpetrated  by  an  Irish  subaltern, 
was  played  primarily  on  the  colonel,  who  had  cast  the  be- 
loved drum-horse  from  the  service.  The  colonel's  fina. 
decision  that  since  the  old  horse  had  proved  capable  of 
cutting  up  the  whole  regiment  he  should  be  returned  to 
his  post  at  the  head  of  the  band  was  received  with 
cheers. 

"  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  parallel  of  its  own  class 
to  «  The  Rout  of  the  White  Hussars,1  with  its  study 
of  the  effects  of  what  is  believed  to  be  supernatural  on  a 
gathering  of  young  fellows  who  are  absolutely  without 
fear  of  any  phenomenon  of  which  they  comprehend  the 
nature."  —  Ed?nund  Gosse. 
Route  Marchin'.  (Ballads.)  — The  song  of  a  regi- 
ment 

Marchin'  on  relief  over  Injia's  sunny  plains, 
little  front  o'  Christmas-time  an'  just  be'ind  the  Rains." 
Sacrifice   of   Er-Heb,  The.      (Ballads.) — A  blank- 
verse  narrative  setting  forth  how  Bisesa,  a  beautiful  maiden, 


A 


1 68  A   Kipling   Primer 

offered  her  life  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  angry  god  Taman  in 
order  to  save  her  tribe  from  "  the  Sickness."  The  girl's 
death  appeased   Taman,   and  the  epidemic  ceased. 

Sappers.        (The    Seven    Seas.)  — A   defence   of  their 
especial    work   by   Her    Majesty's    Royal  Engineers,    who 
modestly   believe 
f'  There's  only  one  Corps  which  is  perfect  —  that's  us." 

Screw-Guns.  (Ballads.) — The  title  of  this  army 
song  explains  its  theme.      It  has  a  very  rhythmical  move- 

ent. 

Sea-Wife,  The.  (The  Seven  Seas.)  —A  ballad  of 
England,  the  sea-wife,  who 

"  Breeds  a  breed  o'  rovin'  men 
And  casts  them  over  sea." 

Second-Rate  Woman,  A.  (  Under  the  Deodars). —  Mrs. 
Delville,  "The  Dowd,"  was  an  especial  aversion  of  Mrs. 
Hauksbee.  She  dressed  shabbily,  she  walked  badly,  she 
dropped  her  g's.  But  on  one  occasion  when  Mrs.  Hauksbee 
had  tried  to  save  a  neighbor's  sick  child  and  had  quite  given 
up  hope,  the  Dowd  shuffled  in  at  the  opportune  moment 
and  rescued  the  baby's  life.  The  result  may  be  told  in 
Mrs.  Hauksbee's  words  :  "  So  nobody  died,  and  everything 
went  off  as  it  should,  and  I  kissed  the  Dowd,  Polly." 

Sending  of  Dana  Da,  The.  (In  Black  and  White.) 
—  Dana  Da,  an  Oriental  Yankee,  plays  upon  the  credulity 
of  a  cult  of  psychical  experimenters  in  India,  and  accom- 
plishes an  apparent  miracle  which  results  in  many  rupees  to 
himself,  not  a  little  mystification  to  outside  observers,  and 
much  holy  rapture  to  adherents  of  the  "Tea  Cup  Creed." 
He  confesses  on  his  death-bed  to  the  simple  trick  by  which 
he  has  wrought  his  manifestations. 


Index  to  Writings  169 

Sergeant's  Weddin',  The.  (The  Seven  Seas.)  —  A 
private  tells  the  story.  It  is  plain  that  he  has  no  love  either 
for  the  officer  or  for  his  bride. 

Sestina  of  the  Tramp-Royal.  {The  Seven  Seas.) 
—  One  of  Kipling's  rare  experiments  in  artificial  verse- 
forms.  So  skilfully  is  it  done  that  all  sense  of  effort  is 
successfully  hidden.  The  poem  contains  a  very  noble  and 
optimistic  philosophy  of  life. 

Shillin'  a  Dat.  (Ballads.)  — An  old  soldier  who 
has  fought  for  the  Queen  in  every  part  of  India  and  is  now 
"cast  from  the  service  "  talks  of  his  poverty  and  tells  of 
his    past. 

Ship  that  Found  Herself,  The.  {Day  s  Work.)  — 
Mr.  Kipling,  who  is  in  the  confidence  of  all  animate  and 
inanimate  things,  assures  us  that  it  takes  a  good  while  for  a 
newly-launched  vessel  to  find  herself.  Until  she  does,  all 
the  separate  pieces  chatter  among  themselves  regarding  their 
respective  duties  ;  but  the  talking  finally  melts  into  one  voice, 
which  is  the  conscious  soul  of  the  ship.  It  was  so  with  the 
cargo-steamer  "Dimbula,"  bound  for  New  York,  and  this 
romance  of  marine  mechanism  has  for  principal  characters 
such  personages  as  steam  cylinders,  deck-beams,  and  bow- 
plates. 

A  writer  in  Macmillati's  (December,  1898)  con- 
siders this  story  an  allegory  —  "  Servants  of  the  State 
have  to  realize  that  they  are  parts  of  a  machine,  the 
whole  of  which  depends  on  the  loyalty  of  every  part." 

Shiv  and  the  Grasshopper.  —  A  three-stanza  poem 
following  "  Toomai  of  the  Elephants  "  in  the  Jungle  Book. 
It  is  a  lullaby  that  Toomai's  mother  sang  to  the  baby. 

Shut--Eye  Sentry,   The.      {The    Seven   Seas.)  —  A 


170  A   Kipling   Primer 

ballad  giving  "the  story  of  the  implicit  or  constructive  per- 
jury of  thirty  sergeants,  forty-one  corporals,  and  nine 
hundred  rank  and  file  to  save  their  orderly  officer  from  a 
charge  of  drunkenness. ' '  The  Academy,  while  admitting  the 
great  strength  of  this  poem,  questions  Mr.  Kipling's  right 
to  treat  such  a  subject.  It  raises,  also,  a  similar  query 
regarding   "That  Day.'' 

Slaves  of  the  Lamp.  —  A  tale  in  two  parts,  McClure* '  s 
Magazine,  August,  1897.  The  principal  personages  in 
Part  One  are  "  Stalky  "  Corkran,  or  the  Slave  of  the  Lamp, 
Beetle,  or  Master  Gigadibs,  and  McTurk,  or  Turkey.  Re- 
enforced  by  three  other  young  collegians  from  the  "down- 
stairs study,"  they  are  practising  for  amateur  theatricals 
when  their  rehearsal  is  suddenly  broken  up  by  King, 
'«  the  most  hated  of  the  house-masters."  The  rest  of  the 
tale  is  concerned  with  the  laughable  and  humiliating  re- 
venge which  Stalky  and  Co.  took  on  their  priggish  in- 
structor. Part  Two  introduces  us  to  the  same  group,  who 
have  a  reunion  after  the  lapse  of  fifteen  years.  Only  Stalky 
is  absent,  but  it  is  about  Stalky  that  the  interest  centres. 
He  is  as  much  the  hero  of  the  circle  as  ever,  and  it  is  with 
a  story  of  his  plucky  exploits  in  the  British  army,  illustrating 
his  well-known  trait  of  "stalkiness,"  that  the  tale  concludes. 
Smith  Administration.  —  (See  From  Sea  to  Sea.} 
Snarleyow.  (Ballads.}  — A  tragic  incident  of  battle 
from  which  Tommy  draws  a  lesson  : 

"The  moril  of  this  story,  it  is  plainly  to  be  seen  : 
You  'aven't  got  no  families  when  servin'  of  the  Queen  — 
You  'aven't  got  no  brothers,  fathers,  sisters,  wives,  or  sons  — 
If  you  want  to  win  your  battles  take  an'  work  your  bloomin' 


J 


Index   to  Writings  171 


Soldier  an'  Sailor  Too.  (The  Seven  Seas.)  — In 
this  rattling  song  a  British  soldier  describes  the  marines  in 
the  service,  who  are  members  neither  of  any  regiment  nor 
of  any  crew.  His  opinion  of  them  is  a  mixture  of  preju- 
dice, dislike,  and  admiration. 

"  This  is  a  poem  springing  with  spirit  ;  Mr.  Kipling 

uses  its  common  words  as  though  they  were  the  weapons, 

the  fire,  and  the  crowns  of  war  —  and  these,  indeed,  he 

makes  them."  —  Academy. 

Soldier,   Soldier.      (Ballads.}  —  A  dialogue  between 

a  returned   British  soldier  and  an  English  girl  who  has  lost 

her  lover  in  the  war. 

Soldier  Tales.  —  A  book  of  military  tales  selected 
from  Kipling's  works,  and  published  by  Macmillan  in 
1896.  It  has  more  than  twenty  page-illustrations  by  A. 
S.  Hartrick.  The  stories  are  :  "  With  the  Main  Guard  ;  " 
"  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft  ;  "  "  Man  who  Was  ;  " 
"  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd  ;  "  "  Incarnation  of  Krishna 
Mulvaney  ;  "  "  Taking  of  Lungtungpen  ;  "  and  "  Madness 
of  Private  Ortheris." 

Solid  Muldoon,  The.  (Soldiers  Three.)  —  Mul- 
vaney tells  of  the  day  fourteen  years  before  when  he 
"  fought  wid  woman,  man,  and  divil  all  in  the  heart  av  an 
hour."  The  woman  was  Annie  Bragin,  who  "had  eyes 
like  the  brown  av  a  buttherfly's  wing  whin  the  sun  catches 
ut ;  "  the  man  was  Annie's  jealous  husband;  the  devil  was 
incarnate  in  the  ghost  of  Corporal  Flahy,  who  after  his 
wife's  death  from  cholera  "  walked  afther  they  buried  him, 
huntin'  for  her." 

Song  of  Kabir,  A.  — A  poem  following  "The  Mira- 
cle of  Purun  Bhagat  "  in  the  Second  Jungle  Book. 


172  A   Kipling   Primer 


Song    of    the    Banjo,    The.      ( The    Seven  Seas. )  — 
The  army   banjo,  which  travels   "with   the  cooking-pots 
and    pails,"  or   "sandwiched    'tween  the  coffee  and   the 
pork,"    sings    of   her  experiences   in   all    quarters    of  the 
world.      An  amazingly  clever,  if  somewhat  artificial,  poem. 
"For  sheer  ingenuity  and   lightness  of  touch,  *  The 
Song  of  the  Banjo1  cannot    be    matched."  —  Black- 
woods. 
Song  of  the   English,   A.      (The  Seven  Seas.)  —  A 
group  of  lyrics,  including  "The  Coastwise  Lights,"  "The 
Song  of  the   Dead,"    "The    Deep-sea   Cables,"    "The 
Song    of   the   Sons,"  "The  Song  of    the   Cities,"     and 
"England's   Answer."       Of  these,    the   least  successful, 
perhaps,  is  "The  Song  of  the  Cities,"  but  no  one  of  them 
is  lacking  in  superb  lines. 

"  «  A  Song  of  the  English,'  with  its  ballads  and  inter- 
ludes, is  the  cantata  of  a  master."  —  E.  C.  Stedman. 
\       Song  of  the  Little  Hunter,   The.  —  A  three-stanza 
poem,   with  a  very  musical  movement,   following   "  The 
King's  Ankus  "  in  the  Second  Jungle  Book. 

Spring  Running,  The.  {Second  Jungle  Book.)  — 
Mowgli  is  now  nearly  seventeen  years  old.  It  is  the  end 
of  the  cold  weather,  and  Spring,  "  The  Time  of  New 
Talk,"  approaches.  Mowgli' s  joy  in  the  season  is 
mingled  with  a  restless  unhappiness.  His  "running" 
leads  him  to  the  village  where  Messua  lives,  and  he  is 
given  cordial  welcome.  On  returning  to  the  Jungle, 
Mowgli  bids  farewell  to  his  friends  and  prepares  to  take  up 
his  home  among  men.  Filled  with  passages  of  exquisite 
description. 

Stalky  and  Co.  —  A  story  of  school-boy  life  published 
serially  in  McClure's  Magazine,  Dec,  1898-June,  1899. 


Index  to  Writings  173 

The  titles  of  the  instalments  in  their  order  are  as  follows  : 
"Stalky,"  An  Unsavory  Interlude  ;  The  Impressionists; 
The  Moral  Reformers  ;  A  Little  Prep.  ;  The  Flag  of 
their  Country  ;  The  Last  Term.  The  chief  characters 
are  Stalky,  McTurk,  and  Beetle,  introduced  to  the  readers 
of  McClure's  in  Slaves  of  the  Lamp,  August,  1897.  In 
the  first  chapter,  Corkran  receives  his  nickname,  Stalky, 
by  which  he  is  henceforth  familiarly  known.  "  '  Stalky,' 
in  the  school  vocabulary,  meant  clever,  well-considered, 
and  wily,  as  applied  to  a  plan  of  action  ;  and  stalkiness  was 
the  one  virtue  Corkran  toiled  after."  McTurk  is  a  young 
Irishman  ;  Beetle,  who  wears  glasses  and  writes  poetry,  is 
Mr.  Kipling  himself,  so  we  have  been  informed  by  Mr. 
M.  G.  White,  an  old  schoolmate;  and  the  "Coll."  is 
the  well-known  Devonshire  college  of  Westward  Ho, 
where   Mr.    Kipling  received  his  schooling. 

Story  of  Muhammad  Din,  The.  (Plain  Tales. ) — ■ 
A  sympathetic  study  of  child-life.  Little  Muhammad  Din 
becomes  friends  with  the  author  and  builds  wonderful  pal- 
aces in  his  garden.  One  morning  the  Sahib  misses  the 
boy,  and  soon  learns  that  he  is  down  with  the  fever.  A 
week  later  he  meets  the  father  of  the  child  carrying  in  his 
arm:,  to  the  Mussulman  burying-ground  the  tiny  body  of 
Muhammad  Din. 

"  Nowhere  in   his   more  elaborate  efforts  to  delineate 
child-life   .    .    .    does   he  give  us  so  perfect  a  piece  of 
work  as  the  little  child-idyl  called  "The  Story  of  Mu- 
hammad Din."  — Francis  Adams,  Fortnightly. 
"  A  pathetic  masterpiece."  — Edinburgh  Review. 
Story    of    the  Gadsbys,    The.  —  I.      "  Poor    Dear 
Mamma."      The    scene    shifts    from  the  interior  of  Miss 
Minnie   Threegan's    bedroom  at    Simla    to   her  mamma's 


174  A   Kipling   Primer 

drawing-room.  Miss  Threegan's  first  meeting  with  Cap- 
tain Gadsby  is  described  with  much  humor.  Poor  dear 
mamma  distinctly  loses  charm  in  that  officer's  eyes  as  her 
daughter  gains.  The  scene  ends  with  an  avowal  of  the 
engagement. 

II.  "  The  World  Without."  The  engagement  of 
Captain  Gadsby  to  Miss  Minnie  Threegan  is  familiarly  dis- 
cussed in  the  smoking-room  of  the  Degchi  Club  by  "  cer- 
tain people  of  importance."  There  is  plenty  of  slang, 
liquor,  and  masculine  gossip. 

III.  "The  Tents  of  Kedar."  Captain  Gadsby  faces 
the  uncomfortable  duty  of  breaking  the  news  of  his  engage- 
ment to  Mrs.  Herriott,  a  woman  deeply  in  love  with  him, 
with  whom  he  has  lived  in  the  most  intimate  relations. 
The  scene  is  a  Naini  Tal  dinner  party.  This  sketch  con- 
tains some  of  Kipling's  most  telling  dialogue. 

"True  drawing-room  comedy  of  a  high  order.'"  — 
Francis  Adams  in  Fortnightly. 

"  The  conversation  in  'The  Tents  of  Kedar'  .  .  . 
is  of  consummate  adroitness."  — Edmund  Gosse. 

For  an  adverse  opinion  see  Athentzum^uXy  5,  1890. 

IV.  "  With  Any  Amazement."  This  sketch,  taking 
its  title  from  the  line  in  the  marriage  service,  "  And  are 
not  afraid  with  any  amazement,"  describes  with  great 
humor  Gadsby' s  wedding-day.  The  groom  suffers  untold 
tortures,  but  the  best  man,  Captain  Mafflim,  remains  loyal 
to  the  last. 

V.  "The  Garden  of  Eden."  A  honeymoon  dialogue 
between  Captain  Gadsby,  now  three  weeks  a  husband,  and 
his  eighteen-year-old  wife.      A  specimen  : 

"  Mrs.  G.  «  D'you  know  that  we're  two  solemn,  seri- 
ous, grown-up  people  ?  ' 


Index  to  Writings  175 

"  Capt.  G.      (Tilting  her  straw  hat  over    her    eyes.) 
*  You  grown  up  !      Pooh  !     You're  a  baby.* 
"  Mrs.  G.      'And   we're  talking  nonsense.' 
"  Capt.  G.      «  Then  let's  go  on  talking  nonsense.'  " 

VI.  "Fatima."  This  sketch,  the  scene  of  which  is 
laid  in  the  Gadsbys'  bungalow  in  the  Plains,  has  for  its 
motto,  "And  you  may  go  into  every  room  of  the  house 
and  see  everything  that  is  there,  but  into  the  Blue  Room 
you  must  not  go."  (Story  of  Bluebeard.')  Minnie 
Gadsby,  not  content  with  the  other  apartments  of  her 
husband's  life,  prys  into  the  Blue  Room  and  discovers  — 
Mrs.  Harriet  Herriott. 

VII.  "  The  Valley  of  the  Shadow."  Scene— The 
Gadsbys'  bungalow  in  the  Plains.  Time —  3-4°  A.  M.  of 
a  hot  night  about  two  years  after  Captain  Gadsby's  mar- 
riage. Mrs.  Gadsby  is  terribly  ill  and  the  doctor  is  fight- 
ing for  her  life.  The  woman's  delirious  babble,  her  hus- 
band's broken  and  frantic  words,  the  Junior  Chaplain's 
platitudes,  and  the  physician's  cool  orders,  make  up  a  varied 
and  moving  dramatic  sketch.      Mrs.  Gadsby  recovers. 

"  The  pathos  of  the  little  bride's  delirium  in  *  The 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  '  is  of  a  very  high,  almost  of  the 
highest,  order.' '  —  Gosse. 

VIII.  "The  Swelling  of  Jordan."  This  concluding 
scene  introduces  us  to  Gadsby  Junior  (alias  the  Brigadier), 
aged  ten  months.  Captain  Gadsby  seriously  considers  re- 
signing from  the  service,  on  the  ostensible  ground  of  his 
duty  to  wife  and  child,  and  to  his  family  at  home.  The 
story  raises  the  query  whether  marriage  has  made  a  coward 
of  him.      Captain  Mafflim  has  an  opinion  on  the  subject. 

"  The  Gadsbys  is  the  most  amazing  monument  of 
precocity  in  all  literature."  — Blackwoods. 


76  A   Kipling   Primer 


li  The  author's  cynicism  on  the  subject  of  Anglo- 
Indian  life  comes  to  a  head  in  the  story,  cast  in  dramatic 
form,  of  The  Gadsbys.  .  .  .  The  whole  production 
is  vulgar  in  style  and  in  tone  from  beginning  to  end." 

—  Edinburgh  Review. 

Story  of  Ung,  The.  (  The  Seven  Seas. )  —  Ung,  who 
made  pictures  of  mammoth  and  aurochs  on  bone,  learned 
through  bitter  disappointments  a  secret  which  it  were  well 
for  modern  artists  to  heed. 

Strange  Ride  of  Morrowbie  Jukes,  The,  (Phan- 
tom y Rickshaw y  etc.)  — Jukes,  a  civil  engineer  in  the  Indian 
service,  fell  into  a  hideous  Village  of  Living-Dead.  The 
description  of  this  horseshoe-shaped  crater  of  sand  with 
steeply -graded  walls,  broad  bottom,  quicksand  entrance, 
and  badger-holes  about  the  sides  wherein  lived  doomed 
human  victims,  is  Defoe-like  in  its  realism.  The  fran- 
tic attempts  to  get  out  of  the  death-trap,  the  revolting 
methods  of  obtaining  food,  the  treachery  of  the  ex-Brahmin, 
Gunga  Dass,  and  the  final  escape  of  the  Englishman,  are 
related  with  such  cool  verisimilitude  that  the  absurdity  of 
the  plot  is  successfully  concealed. 

"  The  overwhelming  and  Poe-like  horror  of  the 
situation,  and  the  extreme  novelty  of  the  conception. " 

—  Gosse. 

"  A  nightmare  more  perfect  and  terrible,  I  think, 
than  anything  of  Edgar  Poe'  s."  —  Andrew  Lang. 

"  One   of  the   most  powerful  short  stories  ever  writ- 
ten. "  —  The  World \  London. 
Taking    of    Lungtungpen,   The.      (Plain  Tales.)  — 
Mulvaney  relates  how  a    detachment   of  twenty-six  men, 
after  swimming  a  river  at  night,  captured,  when  "  as  nakid 
as  Vanus,"   the  native  town  of  Lungtungpen.      This  was 


Index  to  Writings  177 

the  only  occasion  on  which  Mulvaney  ever  blushed.  It 
increased  his  faith  in  the  British  army,  however.  "  They 
tuk  Lungtungpen  nakid  ;  an'  they'd  take  St.  Petersburg  in 
their  dhrawers.      Begad,  they  would  that  !  " 

"  Those  who  have  not  read  this  little  masterpiece 
have  yet  before  them  the  pleasure  of  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  one  of  the  best  short  stories  not  merely  in 
English,  but  in  any  language. "  —    Gosse. 

'«  There  is  no  funnier  episode  in  the  adventures  of 
Don  Quixote."  —  John  D.  Adams  in  Book  Buyer, 
1896. 
That  Day.  {The  Seven  Seas.) — A  soldier  recalls 
with  shame  a  certain  battle  which  ended  in  disgraceful 
panic  and  flight. 

"  I  wish  I  was  dead  'fore  I  done  what  I  did 
Or  seen  what  I  seed  that  day  !  "  ' 

There  is  pleasure  in  the  wet,  wet  clay.  — 
First  line  of  the  piece  of  eccentric  versification  preceding 
Chapter  Seven  of  The   Naulahka. 

"  For   pure   poetical    prestidigitation   we    never  read 
anything  to  compare  with  the  stanza  prefixed  to   Chap- 
ter VII.  of  The  Naulahka.'"  — Blackwoods. 
Three  and — an   Extra.      {Plain  Tales.) — Tells  of 
a  woman  who  mourned  so  inconsolably  at  the  death  of  her 
baby  that  her  husband   found  her  company  cheerless,  and 
drifted  into  gay  society  where  Mrs.  Hauksbee   (introduced 
to  us  in  this  story  and  frequently  to  appear  hereafter)    an- 
nexed him.      Several  kind  lady  friends  explained  the  situa- 
tion at  length  to  the  wife,  who,  waking  up  to  the  fact  that 
"  the  memory  of  a  dead  child  was  worth  considerably  less 

1  See  the  "  Shut-Eye  Sentry." 


/ 


178  A   Kipling   Primer 

than  the  affections  of  a  living  husband,"  set  herself  to  the 
task  of  winning  back  the  man's  loyalty.  Being  clever  and 
beautiful,  as  well  as  good,  she  succeeded. 

Three-Decker,  The.  {The  Seven  Seas.) — In  an- 
swer to  the  familiar  cry  of  critics,  "  The  three-volume 
novel  is  extinct,"  Kipling  argues  the  case  for  romanticism 
very  cleverly  in  this  parable  of  the  three-decker  which  car- 
ries "  Tired  people  to  the  Islands  of  the  Blest  !  " 

Three  Musketeers,  The.  {Plain  Tales.)  —  In  this 
story  we  have  our  first  introduction  to  Mulvaney,  Learoyd, 
and  Ortheris.  Mulvaney,  assisted  by  the  others,  relates 
how  the  three  prevented  a  Thursday  regimental  parade 
coming  off,  to  have  been  given  in  honor  of  an  obnoxious 
visiting  nobleman.  They  paid  a  man  to  drive  with  the 
unsuspecting  lord  into  a  swamp  where  there  was  to  be  an 
overturning,  a  setting-upon  by  some  fellows  bribed  to  per- 
sonate thieves,  and  then  a  rescue  by  the  three  conspirators. 
The  plot  succeeded.  Not  only  did  the  nobleman  spend 
Thursday  in  the  hospital,  but  the  rescuers  were  liberally 
rewarded  for  gallantry. 

Through  the  Fire.  {Life's  Handicap.)  — Athira, 
the  wife  of  Madu,  a  charcoal-burner,  runs  away  with  Suket 
Singh,  and  is  at  first  very  happy.  But  Madu  sends  after 
her  the  curse  of  Juseen  Daze,  the  wizard  man,  and  she  begins 
to  wither  away  with  fear.  Finally  she  is  induced  to 
return,  but  her  lover  will  not  ler  her  come  alone.  Night 
has  fallen.  They  find  the  stack  of  dry  wood  for  the  next 
day's  charcoal-burning  on  the  hill  above  Madu's  house. 
On  this  pyre,  after  lighting  the  pile  at  the  four  corners, 
Suket  shoots  the  woman  and   then  himself. 

"'Through  the    Fire '  shows  that  one   Englishman 


Index  to  Writings  179 

at  least  has  imagination  enough  to  comprehend  the 
workings  of  the  Oriental  mind."  —  Critic. 
Thrown  Away.  {Plain  Tales.)  — The  story  of  a 
boy  who  was  reared  by  his  parents  in  England  under  the 
"sheltered  life  system,"  and  who,  on  reaching  India  and 
getting  away  from  their  surveillance,  reacted  from  his  train- 
ing, and  ended  a  career  of  dissipation  in  suicide.  His 
comrades,  wishing  to  spare  the  feelings  of  his  family  at 
home,  concocted  a  story  of  the  boy's  death  from  cholera. 

"  The    very  remarkable  story  of  i  Thrown  Away  ' 
is  as  hopelessly  tragic  as  any  in  Mr.    Kip- 
ling's somewhat  grim  repertory.      —  Gosse. 
"  Tiger  !  Tiger  !  "      {Jungle  Book.)  —  Mowgli,  cast 
out  from  the  wolf-pack,  escaped  to  a  village  inhabited  by 
Man.      He  was  approached  with  wonder  and  distrust,  but 
finally  found  a  home  with  Messua,  wife  of  the  richest  vil- 
lager.     While  acting  as  village  herd,  he  killed  Shere  Khan, 
his  old  enemy,  but  this  failed  to  add  to  his  doubtful  popu- 
larity.     Accused  of  sorcery,  the  lad  was  driven  away,  and 
he  returned  to  the  forest.      "  Man    Pack  and  Wolf  Pack 
have  cast  me  out,"   said  Mowgli.      "Now   I  will  hunt 
alone  in   the  jungle." 

To  be  Filed  for  Reference.  {Plain  Tales.)  —  Mc- 
intosh Jellaludin  is  a  former  Oxford  man  who  has  turned 
Mohammedan,  married  a  native  woman,  and  nearly  ruined 
a  remarkable  mind  by  habitual  drunkenness.  On  his  death- 
bed he  bequeathes  to  the  author  the  MS.  of  a  book  which 
he  assures  him  will  make  him  famous.  "It  is  a  great 
work,"  he  says,  "and  I  have  paid  for  it  in  seven  years' 
damnation." 

/To    the    True     Romance.        {The    Seven     Seas.)  — 
This  lyric,  originally  the  prefatory  poem  in    Many  Inven- 


180  A   Kipling   Primer 

tions  and   now  included  in    Tbe  Seven  Seas,   is  a  reverent 
tribute  to  the  "True  Romance,"  which  is 
"  In  sooth  that  lovely  Truth 

The  careless  angels  know  !  " 
"  One  of  Kipling's  most  beautiful  poems,  and  one  in 
which  he  gives   expression  to  his  deepest  self. 
It  is  this  poem  which,  more  than  any  other,  gives  the  key 
to  the  interpretation  of  Mr.  Kipling's  work  in  general, 
and   displays   its   controlling    aim."  —  Charles    Eliot 
Norto?i  in  Atlantic. 
Tods'   Amendment.       {Plain    Tales.)  —  Tods,  a  pre- 
cocious English  six-year-old,  mingles  much  with  the  natives 
and  speaks  the  vernacular.      He  is  present  at  a  dinner-party 
of  his  mamma's  where  one  of  the  guests  is  the    "  Legal 
Member,"  who  has  helped  frame  a  highly  obnoxious  Land 
Bill.      The  talk  drifts  to  the  subject  of  land-tenure,  and  the 
child,  to  the  surprise  of  the  company,  joins  in  the  conver- 
sation and   repeats   some  remarks,  uncomplimentary  to  the 
framers  of  the  Bill,  made  by  his  humble    friends.      The 
great  man  is  so  influenced  by  this  new  light  thrown  on  his 
measure  that  he  introduces  into  the   Bill    "  Tods'    Amend- 
ment. ' ' 

"  <  Tods1  Amendment'  is  in  itself  a  political  allegory. 
What  led  to  the  story,  one  sees  without  diffi- 
culty, was  the  wish  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  unless  the 
Indian    Government    humbles   itself  and   becomes   like 
Tods,  it  can  never  legislate  with  efficiency,   because  it 
never  can  tell  what   all  the  jhampanies  and  saises  in 
the  bazar  really  wish  for."  —  Gosse. 
Tomb  of  His  Ancestors,   The.        {Day's  Work.)  — 
A  young  British  officer  who  inherits  many  striking  charac- 
teristics of  his  dead  grandfather  is  received  on  arriving  in 


Index  to  Writings  1 8  I 

India  with  superstitious  reverence  by  the  Bhils,  a  wild 
native  tribe.  They  believe  that  the  departed  Sahib,  who 
"had  made  them  men  "  and  whom  they  regard  as  their 
tutelary  deity,  is  now  reincarnated.  The  tribe  weave 
supernatural  legends  about  the  young  man  and  obey  his 
slightest  word  as  if  it  were  that  of  a  god.  At  his  com- 
mand they  restore  stolen  property  and  even  submit  to  the 
hated  ordeal  of  vaccination. 

"  The  best  of  the  present  volume  \D.  IV. ,],  in  our 
judgment,    is    'The    Tomb    of   His   Ancestors.'" — 
/     Literature. 

Tomlinson.  {Ballads.)  —  A  poem  of  grotesque  and 
terrible  power  which  well  illustrates  Kipling's  strenuous 
philosophy  of  life.  Tomlinson  was  a  characterless,  luke- 
warm creature,  who,  from  lack  of  positive  virtues,  was  re- 
fused admission  to  Heaven  and  from  weakness  and  lack  of 
wilful  sin  was  scornfully  rejected  by  Hell  also. 

"  There  are  powerful  passages  here  and  there  in  the 
poem,  but  as  a  whole  it  is  what  we  call  splatter-dash 
writing. ' '  —  Edinburgh  Review. 

"  A  gruesome  satire  on  the  lukewarm  sin,  the  limp 
selfishness  of  modern  days."  —  Spectator. 

"The  delightful  satire  of  'Tomlinson.''  — 
Academy. 
Tommy.  {Ballads.*)  — One  of  the  most  widely  known 
and  liked  of  the  Ballads.  Tommy  Atkins  contrasts  the 
way  in  which  he  is  ordinarily  treated  and  spoken  to  by  the 
English  civilian  with  the  conduct  and  speech  he  receives 
when  "there's  trouble  in  the  wind." 

TOOMAI       OF      THE       ELEPHANTS.  {Jungk     Book.)   

Little  Toomai,  ten-year-old  son  of  an  elephant  driver,  was 
rebuked  by  "  Peterson  Sahib  "  for  recklessly  stepping  among 


I  82  A   Kipling  Primer 

the  beasts  at  a  Keddah  stockade.  "  Must  I  never  go 
there?"  the  boy  asked.  "Yes,"  was  the  answer. 
"When  thou  hast  seen  the  elephants  dance."  The  child 
took  this  proverbial  expression,  which  is  equivalent  to 
"never,"  seriously.  His  wish  was  unexpectedly  answered. 
He  was  keeping  guard  over  his  elephant  one  night  when 
the  latter  broke  away  and  headed  toward  the  forest. 
Toomai  was  soon  upon  his  back,  and  presently  found  him- 
self in  one  of  those  rare  gatherings  of  wild  elephants  in  the 
heart  of  the  Garo  hills.  They  stamped  together  in  noisy 
rhythm,  as  if  dancing.  On  his  safe  return,  Little  Toomai 
was  received  with  great  honor,  and  was  straightway  chris- 
tened "Toomai  of  the  Elephants." 

"  Best  of  all,  in  imaginative  scope  and  descrip- 
tive power,  we  hold  to  be  *  Toomai  of  the  Elephants.' 
The  account  of  the  night  journey  of  Kala  Nag  and  his 
tiny  rider  to  the  *  Tanz-Platz  '  of  these  mysterious 
quadrupeds  is  simply  stupendous.'"  —  Athenceum. 

Track  of  a  Lie,  The.  {Phantom  ' Rickshaw.}  Illus- 
trates the  train  of  consequences  that  may  follow  even  the 
utterance  of  a  jest.  The  idle  remark  of  a  club-man  was 
turned  by  a  journalist  into  a  newspaper  paragraph,  which 
made  the  circle  of  the  globe. 

Troopin'.  {Ballads.}  — A  British  soldier,  whose  time 
has  just  expired,  is  jubilant  over  the  prospect  of  returning 
home. 

"  We're  goin'  'ome,  we're  goin'  'ome, 

Our  ship  is  at  the  shore, 
An'  you  must  pack  your  'aversack, 
For  we  won't  come  back  no  more." 

Truce  of  the  Bear,   The.  —  A  very   forcible  ballad, 


Index  to  Writings  183 

published  in  Literature,  Oct.  I,  1898.  The  poem  is,  on 
the  surface,  a  spirited  account  of  a  bear  hunt  ;  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted,  however,  that  its  purpose  is  allegorical.  Its 
appearance  shortly  after  the  Czar's  proclamation  in  behalf 
of  universal  disarmament  lends  color  to  the  belief  that  the 
burden  of  the  poem,  "  Make  ye  no  truce  with  Adam-zad 
—  the  bear  that  walks  like  a  man,"  expresses  distrust  of 
that  monarch's  motive.  The  New  York  Nation,  which 
shares  this  general  view,  has  dubbed  the  ballad  "  Kipling's 
Retrocessional." 

Undertakers  The.  (Second  Jungle  Book.)  — 
During  a  conversation  between  a  Mugger,  an  Adjutant- 
crane,  and  a  jackal,  the  Mugger  (crocodile)  relates  how 
once  he  had  risen  to  the  river's  surface  and  striven  unsuc- 
cessfully to  seize  the  hands  of  a  child  which  were  trailed 
over  the  side  of  a  boat.  After  telling  his  tale,  the  beast 
goes  off  to  doze  on  a  sand-bar.  Here  he  is  presently  dis- 
covered and  shot  dead  by  a  passing  Englishman.  "  The 
last  time  that  I  had  my  hand  in  a  Mugger's  mouth,"  the 
man  says,  stooping  over  the  huge  jaws,  —  and  then  he  tells 
the  story  already  related.  He  is  the  child  grown  to  man- 
hood. 

"  One  of  the   finest   chapters   of  all  in  the  Jungle 

/     Book."  —  Edinburgh  Review. 

'  Vampire,  The.  —  A  poem  written  to  accompany  a 
picture  by  Philip  Burne-Jones  in  the  New  Gallery.  The 
lines  were  printed   in  the  London    Daily   Mail  in  April, 

1897.  They  were  quoted  in  the  Critic  for  May  8,  1897, 
and  have  been  frequently  republished  since.  The  first 
stanza  is  as  follows  : 


184  A  Kipling   Primer 

"  A  fool  there  was  and  he  made  his  prayer 

(Even  as  you  and  I  !) 
To  a  rag  and  a  bone  and  a  hank  of  hair 
(We  called  her  the  woman  who  did  not  care), 
But  the  fool  he  called  her  his  lady  fair 

(Even  as  you  and  I  !)  " 

"A  tremendously  powerful  and  strikingly  original 
and  realistic  variation  of  the  eternal  plaint  against 
woman. ' '  —  Editorial  in  Boston  Transc?'ipt. 

"  The  metrical  manner  of  <  The  Vampire  '  is  that  of 
Poe    in    his    ballad    of    «  Annabel    Lee. "  "  —  Henry 
Austin  i?i  Dial. 
Venus    Annodomini.        {Plain     Tales.)   —  Gayerson, 
very  young  and  impressionable,  thought  himself  deeply  in 
love  with  a  handsome,  middle-aged  beauty  who  looked  half 
her  age.      His  recovery  was  brought  about  in  part  by  the 
advent  of  his  father,  who  revealed  the  fact  that  he  had  him- 
self worshipped  the  woman  in  his  youth.      He  was  cured 
perhaps  quite  as  much   by  meeting  her    nineteen-year-old 
daughter. 

Walking  Delegate,  A.  (Daf  s  Work.)  —  A  yel- 
low horse  from  Kansas  tries  to  spread  sedition  among  a 
company  of  equine  acquaintances  in  a  Vermont  pasture,  but 
his  doctrine  that  all  horses  are  free  and  equal  and  that  they 
should  rise  against  their  oppressor,  Man,  meets  with  very 
forcible  opposition.  Despite  some  touches  of  humor  and 
much  clever  dialect  this  story  must  be  reckoned  as  among 
Mr.  Kipling's  least  successful  ventures. 

"  «  A  Walking   Delegate  '  is  an  allegory  naked  and 

not  ashamed.      Mr.   Kipling  has  a  profound  antipathy 

to  Socialism,  and  a  profound  belief  in  'the  day's  work.' 

.  But  he  has  now  chosen  to  represent  the  contempt 


Index   to  Writings  185 

of  real  workers  for  the  idle  demagogue  in  terms  of 
horseflesh,  and  the  result  is,  to  speak  plainly,  non- 
sense." —  Macmillatt's  Magazine. 
Wandering  Jew,  The.  {Life's  Handicap.)  — John 
Hay  was  rich  but  unhappy,  for  he  feared  to  die.  On 
learning  that  in  going  once  round  the  world  in  an  easterly 
direction  he  could  gain  one  day,  he  made  the  trip,  and 
delighted  with  its  success,  continued  for  years  circling  the 
earth  with  his  face  to  the  rising  sun.  A  doctor,  put  on 
the  track  of  the  man,  caught  him  in  Madras  and  persuaded 
him  that  he  could  gain  immortality  much  more  easily 
through  sitting  in  a  chair  suspended  by  ropes  from  the  roof 
of  a  room  and  letting  the  earth  swing  free  under  him. 
Thus  he  would  gain  a  day  in  a  day  and  be  the  equal  of  the 
undying  sun.  The  counsel  was  followed,  and  there  to-day, 
a  stop-watch  in  his  hand,  racing  against  eternity,  sits  John 
Hay,  the  immortal. 

"  Such  tawdry  trifles  as  'The  Lang  Men  o'  Larut ' 
or  «  The  Wandering  Jew.'  "  —  Athenceum. 
Watches  of  the  Night.  {Plain  Tales.)  — This 
story  is  a  comment  on  the  fact  that  "  many  religious  people 
are  deeply  suspicious."  A  colonel's  wife  was  led  by  cir- 
cumstantial evidence  and  the  promptings  of  her  tempera- 
ment to  suspect  her  excellent  husband  of  infidelity  to  the 
marriage  bond.  She  accused  him  of  his  crime  with  lan- 
guage scriptural  and  to  the  point.  Thenceforth  they  lived 
together  in  wretched  estrangement.  The  whole  tragedy 
might  have  been  averted  if  the  wife  had  possessed  the  ex- 
planation of  the  suspicious  circumstances  which  is  given  in 
the  story. 

Wayside     Comedy,     A.       ( Under   the    Deodars. )  — ■ 
This  powerful  but  unpleasant  story  of  marital  jealousy  and 


1 86  A   Kipling  Primer 

hatred  is  framed  in  the  setting  of  a  lonely  station  in  the  Hills 
which  contains  five  English  people  —  the  dramatis  persona 
of  the  tale.  These  are,  Major  Vansuythen,  virtuous  but 
stupid  ;  his  wife,  whose  only  fault  is  that  she  is  beautiful  ; 
Mrs.  Boulte,  in  her  heart  unfaithful  to  her  husband,  and  in 
love  with  Ted  Kurrell  ;  Kurrell,  a  scoundrel  who  has  trans- 
ferred his  affections  from  Mrs.  Boulte  to  Mrs.  Vansuythen; 
and  Boulte,  tired  of  his  wife,  and  enslaved  to  the  common 
charmer,  who  repulses  both  him  and  Kurrell.  The  state  of 
things  becomes  known  to  each  of  the  five,  except  the 
Major.  The  four  come  to  hate  and  despise  each  other, 
but  the  good  Major  wonders  why  they  are  not  more 
social. 

Wee  Willie  Winkie.  ( Wee  Willie  Winkie,  and 
Other  Stories. )  —  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  the  freckled  six- 
year-old,  by  rescuing  a  young  lady  from  a  dangerous  pre- 
dicament and  probably  saving  her  life,  enters  into  his  man- 
hood and  becomes  thenceforth  Percival  William  Williams. 
The  precocious  behavior  attributed  to  the  little  son  of  the 
Colonel  fails  to  be  convincing.  Indeed,  this  tale,  while 
worth  reading  for  the  sake  of  several  charming  episodes  and 
bits  of  dialogue,  is  the  most  unnatural  of  Kipling's  child- 
stories. 

"  To  criticise  the  story,  which  is  told  with  infinite 
zest  and  picturesqueness,  seems  merely  priggish.  Yet 
if  Wee  Willie  Winkie  had  been  twelve  instead  of  six, 
the  feat  would  have  been  just  possible.  ...  In 
all  this  Mr.  Kipling,  led  away  by  sentiment  and  a  false 
/       ideal,  is  not  quite  the  honest   craftsman  that  he  should 

be."  —  Gosse. 
When  *  Omer  smote  'is  bloomin'  lyre.      (The  Seven 
Seas.)  —  The    first  line  of  a   witty  lyric  preceding    the 


Index   to  Writings  187 

"Barrack-room  Ballads"  In  The  Seven  Seas.      It  is  a  very 
original  disclaimer  of  originality. 

White  Horses.  —  A  lyric  of  eighty  lines  (ten  double 
quatrains)  which  appeared  in  Literature,  Vol.  I.,  No.  I, 
October  23,  1897.      It  begins  : 

"  Where  run  your  colts  at  pasture  ? 

Where  hide  your  mares  to  breed  ?  " 

Professor  Barrett  Wendell,  writing  in  the  New  York 
Times,  has  words  of  praise  for  this  imaginative  poem,  but 
complains  of  its  obscurity.1 

The    "  White  Horses''    apparently  refer  to   nothing 
more  than  white-capped  ocean  waves. 
White     Man's    Burden,   The.  —  A    poem    of  seven 
stanzas,  beginning  : 

"Take  up  the  White  Man's  Burden, 
Send  forth  the  best  ye  breed." 

It  appeared  in  McClure's  for  February,  1899.  It  has 
probably  been  more  widely  read,  discussed,  and  parodied 
than  any  other  poem  of  the  time.  Commenting  on  "  The 
White  Man's  Burden,"  Mr.  W.  T.  Stead,  in  the  Eng- 
lish Review  of  Reviews,  says  :  "  It  is  an  international 
document  of  the  first  order  of  importance.  It  is  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  United  States  to  take  up  the  policy  of  expan- 
sion. It  puts  the  matter  on  the  highest  and  most  unselfish 
grounds.  The  poet  has  idealized  and  transfigured  impe- 
rialism.     He  has  shown  its  essence  to  be  not  lordship,  but 

service." 

"  That  jingo  jingle,  *  The  White  Man's  Burden.'  ' 
—  Henry  Austin  in  Dial. 
White  Seal,   The.      {Jungle  Book.)  —  Kotick,   the 

1  See  Literary  Digest,  Jan.  1,  1898. 


i  88  A  Kipling  Primer 

white  seal,  was  so  horrified  by  the  sight  of  men  butchering 
his  brother  seals  at  the  killing-grounds  that  he  devoted 
himself  to  discovering  some  sheltered  beach  where  men  had 
never  come  and  to  guiding  the  herds  thither.  He  at  last 
succeeded,  but  not  until  he  had  gone  through  many  danger- 
ous adventures. 

«<  '  The  White  Seal '  attracted  a  good  deal  of  atten- 
tion when  it  first  appeared,  in  view  of  the  Behring  Sea 
arbitration,  now  happily  concluded."  — AthencEum. 
Widow    at    Windsor,   The.      (Ballads.}   —  One   of 
"  Missis  Victorier's  sons  "   sings  a  song  in  her  praise.      It 
begins  : 

"Ave  you  'eard  o'  the  *  Widow  at  Windsor  " 

With  a  hairy  gold  crown  on  'er  'ead  ? 
She  'as  ships  on  the  foam  —  she  'as  millions  at  'ome, 
An'  she  pays  us  poor  beggars  in  red." 

Widow's  Party,   The.      (Ballads.)  —  A  soldier  re- 
lates some  of  the  fortunes  of  war  in  the  service  of  Victoria. 
"  You  can't  refuse  when  you  get  the  card, 
And  the  Widow  gives  the  party." 

Will  you  never  let  us  go  ?  Refrain  of  the  striking 
song  of  the  galley-slave,  written  by  Charlie  Mears.1 

William  the  Conqueror.  (Day's  Work.)  —  A  tale 
of  the  great  Famine  of  the  Eight  Districts  in  Southern 
India.  William  the  Conqueror  is  the  nickname  of  Miss 
Martyn,  the  heroine,  who  refuses  to  leave  her  brother  when 
he  is  ordered  south  for  famine  duty.  She  falls  in  love  with 
Scott,  Martyn's  intimate  friend  and  co-laborer  in  relief  dis- 
tribution.     She  likes  "men  who  do  things,"  and  Scott  is 


1  (See  "The  Finest  Story  in  the  World.") 


Index  to  Writings  189 

one  of  her  kind  —  a  robust  type  of  Englishman  who  can 
do  the  work  of  five  men  without  making  any  fuss.  When 
the  Madras  famine  is  stamped  out  and  the  exiles  return  to 
the  north  for  Christmas  week,  the  two  are  engaged  to  be 
married. 

"  Gives  us  a  masterly  impression  of  the  recent  famine 
and  of  the  efforts  made  to  cope  with  it.'"  —  L.  Zang- 
will,  Cosmopolitan,  1 899. 

"One  of  the  finest  things  Mr.  Kipling  has  ever 
done . ' '  —  Mc  Clure's  (  editorial) . 

"  If  ever  there  was  a  story  to  tell  to  boys,  this  '  Will- 
iam the   Conqueror  '  is  that  story.      It  is  the  real   Kip- 
ling, with  a  new  note,  —  the  note  of  pity  and  kindliness, 
—  a  sign  of  his  growth."  —  Academy. 
'-With   Scindia  to   Delhi.      (Ballads.)    —   An  Indian 
Prince  rode  fifty   miles  after    a    heavy  defeat  near  Delhi, 
carrying  on  his  saddle-bow  a  faithful  beggar-girl  who  loved 
him.      He  lost  her  when  almost  within  sight  of  safety. 

With  the  Main  Guard.  (Soldiers  Three.)  Mul- 
vaney  relieves  the  heat  of  a  sleepless  June  night  by  recount- 
ing an  exciting  battle  with  a  body  of  "  bloomin'  Paythans  " 
fought  in  a  "gut  betune  two  hills,  as  black  as  a  bucket,  an* 
as  thin  as  a  girl's  waist."  The  hand-to-hand  struggle 
with  knife  and  bayonet  is  described  with  tremendous  realism 
and  power.  The  fury  of  the  Irish  troops  after  the  first  of 
their  comrades  have  been  slain  sweeps  everything  before  it, 
and  justifies  Mulvaney's  boast  :  "  An  Oirish  rig'mint  is  the 
divil  an'  more." 

"  The  battle  in  the  *  Main  Guard  '  is  like  Homer  or 
Sir  Walter."  —  Blackwoods. 
Without  Benefit    of    Clergy.      (Life's    Handicap.) 
—  John  Holden,    an   Englishman,   bought  a   Mussulman's 


190  A  Kipling  Primer 

daughter  from  her  grasping  hag  of  a  mother,  and  hired  a 
house  for  the  two.  Ameera  was  very  beautiful,  and 
passionately  adored  Holden,  who  returned  her  worship. 
When  she  bore  him  a  son,  Ameera's  cup  of  happiness  was 
full.  But  Tota,  the  "  gold- colored  little  god,"  after 
having  grown  old  enough  to  talk,  died  of  the  seasonal 
autumn  fever.  Ameera  was  completely  heart-broken,  and 
Holden  hardly  less  so.  It  needed  only  the  death  of 
Ameera  herself,  which  followed  not  long  afterward,  from 
black  cholera,  to  make  the  man's  desolation  complete. 

"  The  tremulous  passion  of  Ameera,   her  hopes,  her 

fears,  and   her  agonies  of  disappointment,    combine  to 

form  by  far  the  most  tender  page  which   Mr.    Kipling 

has  written."  —  Edmund  Gosse,  Century,  1891. 

Wreck   of    the   Visigoth,    The.      {Soldiers      Three. ) 

—  A  steamer-captain  tells  about  the  sinking  of  a  five-hun- 
dred-ton  coasting-trade  steamer  one  hundred  miles  from 
land.  The  cowardly  selfishness  of  some  passengers  is  con- 
trasted with  the  bravery  of  others  —  notably  that  of  one 
woman   who  was  among   the  rescued. 

Wressley  of  the    Foreign    Office.      {Plain    Tales.') 

—  Wressley  fell  in  love  with  a  pretty,  frivolous  girl,  and 
decided  that  the  best  work  of  his  career  should  be  laid  rev- 
erently at  her  feet.  Hence  he  wrote  an  exhaustive  history 
of  Native  Rule  in  Central  India,  and  after  months  of  toil 
brought  the  first  copy  of  his  book  to  Miss  Venner.  This 
is  her  review:  "Oh,  your  book  ?  It's  all  about  those 
howwid  Wajahs.  I  didn't  understand  it."  The  man 
departed,  and  destroyed  the  whole  edition  of  the  best  book  of 
Indian  history  ever  written. 

Yoked    with     an     Unbeliever.        {Plain     Tales.)  — 
Phil  Garron  on  sailing  for  India  leaves  a  sweetheart  behind 


Index  to  Writings  191 

who  loves  him  passionately  ;  he  hopes   to  work   hard  and 
return  to  marry  her.      But  soon  her  image    begins  to  fade 
from    Phil's   mind.      She,  on    her    part,  is    forced   by   her 
parents  into  an  uncongenial  marriage.      The  girl  (who  still 
loves  him)  writes  a  wild  letter,  which  he,  conceiving  him- 
self to  be  mightily  slighted,  replies  to  reproachfully.      Phil 
prospers,    marries  a   Hill   girl,   and  settles  down  happily, 
though  Agnes  is   thinking    of  him   with  undeserved   pity. 
Finally  her  husband's    death  releases    the   woman,  and  she 
goes  joyfully  to  seek  Phil  on  his  tea  plantation.      She  finds 
him.      He  and  his  wife  are  very  nice  to  her. 
\/ Young  British  Soldier,  The.     {Ballads. )  —  A  song  of 
advice  composed  for  the  benefit  of  the  "  'arf-made  recruity." 
It  contains  much  excellent  counsel,  and  has  a  roaring  chorus. 
.007      {Day's  Work.)  — The  story  of  a   railway  loco- 
motive, relating   its   introduction  to  brother  engines   in  the 
round-house,  its  forty-mile  run   with  a   wrecking-crew  to 
the  scene  of  an  accident,  and  its  subsequent  election  to  the 
Amalgamated  Brotherhood  of  Locomotives.      The  conver- 
sation of  the  various  engines  comes  as  near  being  convinc- 
ing as  any  such    essentially   artificial   dialogue   can.      The 
story  succeeds  in  what  it  attempts,  but  opinions  may  differ 
as  to  whether  the  attempt  is  worth  while. 

".007  is  beyond  me.  Here  all  Mr.  Kipling's 
manias  break  loose  at  once  —  there  is  the  madness  of 
American  slang,  the  madness  of  technical  jargon,  and 
the  madness  of  believing  that  silly  talk,  chiefly  consist- 
ing of  moral  truisms,  is  amusing  because  you  put  it  into 
the  mouths  of  machines."  — MacmillatCs  Magazine. 
"  Unless  the  reader  is  an  engine-fitter  he  will  not  find 
much  pleasure  in  this  bewildering  maze  of  technical 
terms."  —  Lo7idon  Daily  Chronicle. 


APPENDIX 


CERTAIN     SELECTED      OPINIONS     ON     MR. 
KIPLING'S    WORK    IN    GENERAL 

"  Burnt  into  Mr.  Kipling's"  spirit  is  a  touch  of  that 
Puritanism  which  has  inspired  our  empire-builders  so 
largely.  .  .  .  Whatever  the  form,  Mr.  Kipling  is 
always  at  bottom  in  deep  and  serious  earnest.  Though  so 
wonderful  a  master  of  style  and  metre  and  of  every  form 
of  rhetorical  artifice,  he  never  writes  for  the  sake  of  word- 
spinning,  but  always  because  he  has  got  a  nail  which  he  is 
most  anxious  to  drive  in  up  to  the  head.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Kipling  is,  of  course,  a  poet  who  has  always  been  intensely 
national  in  sentiment,  but  he  is  also  a  great  master  of 
literary  technique,  —  a  conscious  artist  in  words  who  has 
laid  himself  out  to  study  language  as  men  study  a  science, 
and  to  wring  from  it  all  its  secrets  and  all  its  latent  possi- 
bilities. We  know  what  happens  in  France  when  men  do 
that  —  how  the  artist  eats  up  the  man,  and  how  the  inhu- 
man maxim  of  art  for  art's  sake  takes  him  captive.  Im- 
agine the  most  modern  and  most  artful  of  the  younger 
French  poets  being  moved  to  write  in  the  mood  of  a 
Hebrew  prophet.  The  thing  is  inconceivable.  He  might, 
no  doubt,  have  produced  a  great  patriotic  ode  full  of  fire 
and  splendor  ;  but  could  he  have  touched  that  note  of 
093) 


194  A   Kipling   Primer 

seriousness  which  we  see  in  Mr.  Kipling's  verse?"  — 
Spectator,  July  24,   1897  (Editorial). 

*'  Of  the  many  remarkable  qualities  in  Mr.  Kipling's 
publications,  the  most  remarkable  of  all  is  the  extraordinary- 
faculty  of  observation  which  they  display.  .  .  .  Nothing 
he  comes  in  contact  with  seems  to  escape  his  notice,  and, 
while  still  a  young  man,  he  gives  one  the  impression  in  his 
books  of  having  lived  two  or  three  lives,  and  lived  them 
pretty  thoroughly.  .  .  .  But  of  all  Mr.  Kipling's 
works  The  Jungle  Booh,  in  two  series,  is  the  most  remark- 
able and  original,  and  the  one  which,  so  far,  offers  the  best 
promise  of  retaining  a  permanent  place  in  our  literature. 
It  may  be  questioned  whether  compositions 
dealing  so  largely  in  slang  and  colloquialisms  [i.e.,  as  many 
of  the  stories  and  ballads  do]  can  ever  hope  to  take  a  per- 
manent place  in  literature,  however  dramatically  expressive 
they  may  be  for  the  immediate  purpose.  .  .  .  Apart 
from  the  question  of  slang,  such  sketches  of  the  superficial 
manners  and  talk  of  the  society  of  the  day  as  are  put  before 
us  in  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills,  however  clever  and 
brilliant,  form  only  amusing  reading  for  contemporaries  ; 
they  have  no  lasting  interest.  .  .  .  Every  now  and 
then  the  author  has  risen  above  this  level,  and  has  shown 
that  he  has  it  in  him  to  deal  with  the  pathos  and  the 
humor  of  life  in  a  broader  spirit  and  from  a  higher  point 
of  view  ;  but  his  excursions  into  these  higher  regions  are 
few  and  transitory.  ...  He  has  to  a  great  extent 
been  frittering  away  his  remarkable  and  exceptional  powers 
in  playing  to  the  gallery." — Edinburgh  Review,   1898. 

"  The  nameless  red-haired  girl  in  The  Light  that  Failed, 
whom   for  convenience'  sake  we  shall   call   Anonyma,  re- 


Appendix  195 

marks  to  Dick  Heldar,  ' Your  things  smell  of  tobacco  and 
blood;  can't  you  do  anything  but  soldiers?'  Yes, 
Anonyma,  he  can  do  many  other  things,  but  the  scent 
which  you  dislike  will  hang  over  them  all  ;  for  the  *  fog  of 
fighting  '  has  got  into  his  eyes,  and  he  carries  the  battle- 
field wherever  he  wanders.  .  .  .  Vitality  at  all  costs 
is  Mr.  Kipling's  aim  — to  be  alive  and  to  show  it.  .  .  . 
Mild  clear  lights  are  not  at  all  to  his  liking.  Still  life  is 
the  one  kind  of  life  which  he  would  never  choose  to  paint. 
Vitality,  with  Mr.  Kipling,  keeps  at  a  safe 
distance  from  refinement.  It  cannot  trust  itself  in  the 
society  of  good  women  or  of  courteous  and  self-respecting 
men.  It  is  loud-voiced  and  masterful,  swaggering  about 
with  its  hat  on  one  side  and  its  hand  perpetually  on  the  hilt 
of  its  sword,  challenging  admiration,  and  talking,  with  a 
boastful  air,  of  horses  and  *  heterodox  women.' 
If  Realism  be  a  volcanic  shower  of  mud  and  red-hot 
cinders,  burning  up  the  soil  on  which  it  falls,  then  three- 
fourths  of  Mr.  Kipling's  stories  are  realistic.  The  fire  in 
them  is  unmistakable  ;  but  the  fountains  of  mud  are  blown 
into  the  air  along  with  it,  and  harden  on  the  ground  into 
dead  lava."  —  Quarterly,   1892. 

"His  whole  utterance  vibrates  with  an  audible,  if  some- 
what coarse  pulse  of  feeling,  is  quickened  by  a  bold,  if  some- 
what bravado  passion,  is  instinct  with  a  buccaneer's  daring, 
an  imperialist's  idealism,  a  man's  fibre  and  flesh  and  blood. 
And  it  is  resonant  with  corresponding  lilt  and  rhythm,  It 
swings  effects  on  the  reader  by  its  flashing,  dashing  refrains. 
Neither  sensation  nor  cadence  are  ever  sustained,  and  both 
are  seldom  delicate.  They  are  earthly,  but  not  earthy  ; 
compact    of  the  world,    but   not    of  clay.      .      .      .      His 


196  A   Kipling   Primer 

men  fight  and  win  ;  his  women  love  and  are  lost  ;  he  de- 
lights in  the  fiery,  furious  moods  of  humanity  and  nature  ; 
he  *  rejoices  like  a  giant  to  run  his  course  ;  '  so  far  there  is 
something  of  Byron  about  him  ;  in  fine,  he  sings  (some- 
times whistles)  of  adventure,  like  an  adventurer.  And  yet 
he  is  not  destitute  of  softer  intervals,  deeper  insight,  and 
sublimer  flights.  .  .  .  His  whole  message  is  informed 
with  a  scorn  of  the  petty  and  sordid,  the  sickly  and  the 
maudlin.  .  .  .  His  enormous  directness  of  animal 
vigor,  his  absolute  sincerity  and  magic  insight,  above  all, 
his  impetuous  audacity.  .  .  .  He  is  truly  and  power- 
fully himself." —  Quarterly,   189/. 

«*A  glowing  imagination,  an  inexhaustible  invention,  a 
profound  knowledge  of  the  human  heart  — -  these  are  three 
of  his  choicest  possessions.  Yet  how  inadequately  does  so 
bald  a  statement  sum  up  the  rich  profusion  of  his  talents  ! 
How  beggarly  and  feeble  seem  the  resources  of  language  to 
do  justice  to  his  great  achievements  !  ' '  —  Blackwoods, 
1898. 

"  While  Mr.  Kipling  surveys  mankind  from  China  to 
Peru,  he  does  so  not  from  the  dubious  point  of  view  of  the 
cosmopolitan,  but  from  the  firm  vantage-ground  of  a 
Briton."  —  Ibid. 

"  In  the  present  volume  {Seven  Seas)  the  cynical  reader 
will  turn  to  a  little  group  of  literary  allegories  with  peculiar 
pleasure.  *  The  Last  Rhyme  of  True  Thomas, '  *  In  the  Neo- 
lithic Age,'  <  The  Story  of  Ung/  *  The  Three-Decker ' 
—  all  excessively  clever,  and  all  written  to  instruct  the  re- 
viewer what  he  is  to  say,  to  tell  him  what  his  attitude  must  be. 
He  is  to  insure  the  creator,  the  manly  maker  of  music,  who 
•  sings  of  all  we  fought  and  feared  and  felt,'    against  «  criti- 


Appendix  197 

cism,'  by  which  Mr.  Kipling  invariably  means  malignant 
and  envious  attack.  The  public  likes  this  defiant  attitude, 
and  the  great  majority  of  reviewers  are  abashed  by  it."  — 
Saturday  Review. 

"  Not  since  Adam  was  driven  from  the  Jungle  has  there 
been  any  one  to  let  us  in.  .  .  .  It  has  remained  for 
Mr.  Kipling  to  prove  to  us,  above  all  the  warfare  of  life, 
the  essential  brutish  brotherhood  that  links  forever  all  the 
mouths  and  stomachs  of  the  world.  Basing  his  work  upon 
the  latent  Mowgli  in  us  all,  he  has  created  one  of  the  most 
masterful  illusions  of  literature.  It  almost  makes  a  man 
think  with  his  stomach  to  read  the  Jungle  through. ' '  — 
Critic ,  Nov.  23,   1895. 

"  We  take  Mr.  Kipling  very  seriously,  for  he  is  the 
greatest  creative  mind  that  we  now  have  ;  he  has  the  de- 
vouring eye  and  the  portraying  hand. "  —  Atlantic  Monthly. 

"  Mr.  Kipling's  work  is  the  art  form  of  Calvinism. 
When  Calvinism  was  new  and  fresh  in  the  world,  each 
man  was  so  troubled  about  the  salvation  or  damnation  of 
his  own  individual  soul,  it  would  seem,  that  he  had  no 
heart  or  time  to  work  the  awful  theology  over  into  art. 
But  now  that  the  devil  has  loosed  his  hold  a  bit,  and  we 
sit  up  and  look  about  us  in  a  blinking  world,  something  of 
the  old  Greek  spirit  comes  creeping  back  ;  and  there  arises 
among  us  a  poet  to  sing  :  « What  is  to  be  will  be,  and  it's 
all  in  the  day's  work  :  let  no  man,  therefore,  shirk  ;  neither 
let  him  be  afraid.'  .  .  .  The  law  is  his  master-word 
—  the  law  of  the  jungle,  the  law  of  the  army,  the  law  of 
Her  Majesty's  realm,  and  the  law  of  gravity.  Of  '  the 
spirit  that  giveth  life  '  he  has  no  word  to  speak."  — 
J.  B.  P.,  in  Critic,  November,  1898. 


198  A   Kipling  Primer 

"  The  secret  of  his  strength  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  ex- 
presses the  force  of  the  deeper-lying  human  instincts  as  they 
are  stimulated  by  the  demands  of  modern  life.  He  bids  us 
listen  to  them  as  guiding  voices  which  tell  of  the  long  ex- 
perience of  our  human  ancestors,  and  of  that  line  of  living 
forms  from  which  the  first  of  human  beings  was  descended. 
He  warns  us  that  these  instincts  must  not  be  quenched  by 
the  artificiality  of  what  we  in  our  pride  call  our  modern 
civilization  ;  that  they  must  be  modified  to  harmonize  with 
the  complex  environment  of  these  later  times,  rather  than 
bridled  into  subjection  by  a  confident  rationalism  which 
forgets  the  failures  of  reason  in  the  past."  —  H.  R.  Mar- 
shall in  Century, 

"Not  infrequent  in  Mr.  Kipling's  works  is  an  epic 
quality,  both  of  imagery  and  diction,  it  were  vain  to  seek 
elsewhere  in  modern  fiction.  By  such  vigorous  and  vital 
phrases  as  'the  dark,  stale  blood  that  makes  men  afraid/ 
or  ■  the  earth  turned  to  iron  lest  men  should  escape  by 
hiding  in  her,'  he  produces  a  direct,  irresistible  effect.  In 
his  love  of  homely  similes,  he  keeps  close  to  the  practice  of 
the  great  masters  of  the  epic."  —  The  National  Observer. 

"  In  the  wonderful  series  of  lyrics,  which  have,  one 
after  another,  within  the  past  five  years  captured  the  whole 
world  and  become  familiar  almost  to  weariness,  the  great 
achievement  was  that  in  them  he  restored  poetry  to  the  use 
of  the  modern  world  as  a  real  force.  In  his  hands  it  has 
ceased  to  be  a  plaything  of  dilettante  scholars  and  artists, 
and  become  a  mighty  and  practical  instrument,  —  a  weapon 
of  finest  temper  for  polemic  controversy,  a  moral  force  com- 
pared with  which  the  teaching  of  philosophy,  press,  and 
pulpit  sounds  feeble.      It  is  undoubtedly  his  very  rudeness 


Appendix  199 

of  strength,  use  of  slang  expressions,  and  coarse  realism  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  that  give  his  verse  such  virility  and 
pungency  and  timeliness,  that  it  can  shy  its  castor  into  the 
roped  arena  of  every-day  men's  combats  and  excitements, 
where  the  aesthetic  elegance  and  high-minded  aloofness  of 
Tennyson  would  be  as  pathetically  ludicrous  as  a  knight 
stalking  about  in  clanking  armor." — Boston  Transcript, 
1899  (Editorial). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY   OF    FIRST    EDITIONS 

i.    Schoolboy  Lyrics.       Lahore,  1881.      The   Civil  and 
Milita?y  Gazette.      i6mo,  pp.  46. 

2.  Echoes.     By    two    writers.      Lahore  :    the     Civil    and 

Military  Gazette  Press,  1884.  8vo.  (Privately  cir- 
culated while  Kipling  was  a  young  man  on  the  staff  of 
The  Civil  and  Military  Gazette.) 

3.  Quartette,  The  Christmas  Annual  of  the  Civil 

and  Military  Gazette.  By  Four  Anglo-Indian 
Writers.  Lahore,  1885.  Gray  paper  wrapper.  8vo. 
pp.  125.  (Written  entirely  by  members  of  the  Kipling 
family.  Includes  "The  Phantom  'Rickshaw  "  and 
"  The  Strange  Ride  of  Marrowbie  Jukes,  C.B.") 

4.  On    Her    Majesty's    Service  only,  Departmental 

Ditties,  and  Other  Verses.  To  all  Heads  of 
Departments  and  All  Anglo-Indians.  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling, Assistant.  Department  of  Public  Journalism, 
Lahore  District.  1886.  Oblong  8vo.  Printed  on  one 
side  only,  on  brown  paper  like  a  public  document,  at 
Lahore,  by  The  Civil  atid  Military  Gazette  Press. 

5.  Departmental  Ditties.    Second  edition.    Lahore,  n.  d. 

(1887?).      8vo. 

"Second  edition  of  *  Departmental  Ditties'    had   extra 

verses  ;  so,  I  believe,  had  third."  — Rudyard  Kipling. 

6.  Departmental     Ditties.       Third     edition.       Lahore 

(1888?).      8vo. 

7.  Plain    Tales  from  the  Hills.      Calcutta  :  Thacker, 

Spink,  &  Co.      London  :    W.  Thacker  &  Co.      1888. 
i2mo.      pp.  xii-283.      Twenty-eight  of  the  forty  tales 
appeared  originally  in    The    Civil  and  Military  Ga- 
zette ;  the  others  were  new. 
(200) 


Bibliography  201 

8.  Soldiers  Three.     A  Collection  of  Stories  setting  forth 

Certain  Passages  in  the  Lives  and  Adventures  of 
Privates  Terence  Mulvaney,  Stanley  Ortheris,  and  John 
Learoyd.  Done  into  type  and  Edited  by  Rudyard 
Kipling.  Allahabad  :  Printed  at  the  Pioneer  Press. 
1888.  Gray  paper  covers.  8vo.  pp.  97.  Issued 
as  No.  1  of  A.  H.  Wheeler  &  Co.'s  Indian  Railway 
Library. 

9.  The  Story  of  the  Gadsbys.      A  tale  without  a  plot. 

Allahabad:  A.  H.  Wheeler  &  Co.  1888.  Gray 
paper  covers.  8vo.  pp.  vi-100.  No.  2  of  A.  H. 
Wheeler  &  Co.'s  Indian  Railway  Library. 

10.  In  Black  and  White.      Allahabad  :  A.    H.   Wheeler 

&  Co.  1888.  Gray  paper  wrappers.  8vo.  In- 
troduction, pp.  106.  No.  3  of  Wheeler's  Indian 
Railway  Library. 

11.  Under  the  Deodars.      Allahabad:  A.  H.  Wheeler  & 

Co.  1888.  Gray  paper  wrappers.  8vo.  Preface, 
pp.   106.     No.  4  of  Wheeler's  Indian  Railway  Library. 

12.  The  Phantom  'Rickshaw,  and  Other  Tales.     Al- 

lahabad :  A.  H.  Wheeler  &  Co.  1888.  Gray  paper 
wrappers.  8vo.  pp.  104.  No.  5  of  Wheeler's 
Indian  Railway  Library. 

13.  The  Phantom  'Rickshaw,  and  Other  Eerie  Tales. 

First  English  Edition.  8vo.  Original  wrappers.  Lon- 
don.     1888. 

14.  Wee  Willie    Winkie,   and  Other    Child    Stories. 

Allahabad:  A.  H.  Wheeler  &  Co.  1888.  Gray 
paper  covers.  8vo.  pp.  96.  No.  6  of  Wheeler's 
Indian  Railway  Library. 

15.  The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  and  Other  Sto- 

ries. With  a  Biographical  and  Critical  Sketch  by 
Andrew  Lang.  New  York  :  Harper  &  Brothers. 
1890.     Paper  covers.      Portrait,      nmo.     pp.  xii-182. 


202  A   Kipling   Primer 

16.  Departmental  Ditties,  and  Other  Verses.     Fourth 

edition.  (Containing  nine  poems  not  previously  col- 
lected.)     Calcutta.      Square  8 vo.      1890. 

17.  The     City     of     Dreadful     Night,     and     Other 

Sketches.  (Suppressed.)  Allahabad.  1890.  8vo. 
"  Of  this  book  an  edition  of  3,000  copies,  printed  for 
Wheeler  &  Co.,  was  cancelled.  Of  the  edition  three 
copies  only  were  preserved. "  —  Manuscript  note  on  fly- 
leaf of  copy  sold  in  London  last  December  for  ^22. 

18.  Soldiers  Three,  and  Other  Stories.     First  American 

Edition.  121110.  Original  wrappers.  New  York  : 
John  W.  Lovell  Co.  1890.  Prefixed  to  this  edition  is 
a  facsimile  letter  of  the  author,  not  published  elsewhere. 

19.  Departmental    Ditties,  and  Other  Verses.     Fifth 

edition  (containing  several  additional  poems).  Cal- 
cutta :  Thacker,  Spink  Sc  Co.  London  :  W.  Thacker 
&  Co.  Bombay  :  Thacker  &  Co.,  Limited.  1891. 
Cloth.      8vo.       pp.  vi-121. 

20.  The  City  of  Dreadful  Night,  and  Other  Places. 

Depicted  by  Rudyard  Kipling.  Allahabad  :  A.  H. 
Wheeler  &  Co.  1891.  Gray  paper  covers.  8vo. 
pp.  96.  No.  14  of  Wheeler's  Indian  Railway  Li- 
brary.     (  "  Suppressed  by  me."  —  Rudyard  Kipling.) 

21.  Departmental  Ditties,   and  Other    Verses.      Sixth 

edition.  1891.  Identical  with  5th  except  for  the 
addition  of  a  glossary  of  four  pages. 

22.  The  Smith   Administration.       (Suppressed.)       Alla- 

habad :  A.  H.  Wheeler  &  Co.  1891.  8vo.  "Of 
this  work  an  edition  of  3,000  copies  was  printed,  but 
owing  to  a  difference  of  opinion  between  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling and  the  proprietors  of  the  Pioneer  and  Civil  and 
Military  Gazette,  the  entire  edition  was  destroyed, 
with  the  exception  of  three  copies.""  — Manuscript  note 
on  fly-leaf  of  one  of  the  three  copies  sold  in  London, 
December,  1898,  for  ^26. 


Bibliography  203 


23.  The    City  of  the  Dreadful  Night.      First  English 

edition.  Allahabad  and  London.  1891.  8vo.  (Should 
have  a  slip  of  apology  preceding  title.) 

24.  Life's  Handicap,  being  Stories  of  Mine  Own   Peo- 

ple. London  and  New  York  :  Macmillan  &  Co. 
1 891.      nrao.      pp.  xiii— 351. 

25.  The    Light   that  Failed.       Portrait.       Philadelphia  : 

J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.  (In  Lippincotfs  Magazine, 
January,  1891.)  Paper.  8vo.  pp.  97.  (The  text 
of  the  first  English  edition,  London,  1891,  is  very 
different.) 

26.  Letters    of     Marque.      Allahabad.      1891.      A.    H. 

Wheeler  &  Co.  8vo.  pp.  iv-154.  (Suppressed 
by  author  and  publisher  almost  immediately  after  pub- 
lication.) 

27.  Wee    Willie    Winkee,   and  Other  Stories.      Alla- 

habad and  London.       1891.      8vo. 

28.  American   Notes.       New  York  :    M.   J.   Ivers  &  Co. 

1 89 1.  Paper.  121110.  pp.  160.  (Containing  also 
"The  Bottle  Imp,"  by  R.  L.  Stevenson.) 

29.  Mine    Own    People.      New  York  :    Lovell,   Coryell  & 

Company.  1891.  With  a  Critical  Introduction  by 
Henry  James,  and  Facsimile  of  Manuscript  Letter  by 
Mr.  Kipling.      nmo.      pp.  xxvi-268. 

30.  Barrack-Room      Ballads,      and      Other      Verses. 

London  :  Methuen  &  Co.  1892.  121x10.  pp.  xix- 
208.  Thirty  copies  on  Japan  paper  and  225  on 
large. 

31.  The   Naulahka  :    A    Story    of    West    and    East. 

London:  William  Heinemann.  1892.  umo.  pp. 
vi-276.  (An  edition  with  rhymed  chapter  headings 
was  copyrighted  in  the  same  year  by  Macmillan  &  Co. 
"The  Naulahka"  was  written  in  collaboration  with 
Wolcott  Balestier. 


204  A   Kipling  Primer 


32.  Ballads  and  Barrack-Room  Ballads.      New  York  : 

Macmillan  &  Co.,  and  London.  1892.  nmo. 
pp.  xvi— 207. 

33.  Detroit    Free    Press    Christmas    Number.        Price 

6d.  The  Record  of  Badalia  Herodsfoot.  By  Rud- 
yard  Kipling.  One  Day's  Courtship.  By  Luke  Sharp. 
London.  1893.  Detroit  Free  Press.  (Kipling's 
story  was  published  later  in  '«  Many  Inventions/ ' 

34.  Many  Inventions.      London:   Macmillan  &  Co.,  and 

New  York,  1893.      i2ino.      pp.  ix-365. 

35.  Ballads  and    Barrack-Room    Ballads.       (Contain- 

ing additional  poems.)  New  York  :  Macmillan  &  Co., 
and  London.      1893.      i2mo.     pp.  xvi-217. 

36.  My    First    Book.       The   experiences    of  various    con- 

temporary authors.  London  :  1894,  Chatto  &  Windus. 
8vo.      (With  an  article  by  Kipling.) 

37.  The    Jungle   Book.     Illustrated  by  J.  L.  Kipling,  W. 

H.  Drake,  and  P.  Frenzeny.  London  :  Macmillan  & 
Co.,  and  New  York.      1894.      i2mo.      pp.  vi-212. 

38.  The  Second    Jungle    Book.     Illustrated  by  J.  Lock- 

wood  Kipling.  London  :  Macmillan  &  Co. ,  and  New 
York.      1895.      i2mo.      pp.   238. 

39.  Out  of  India  :  Things  I  Saw  and  Failed  to  See  in  Cer- 

tain Days  and  Nights  at  Jeypoore  and  Elsewhere.  New 
York:  G.  W.  Dillingham.  1895.  i2mo.  pp.  vi— 
346.      (Suppressed.) 

40.  Soldier    Tales.       London:    Macmillan   &   Co.     1896. 

i2mo.      Illustrated. 

41.  The  Seven  Seas.       London:  Methuen  &  Co.        1896. 

Small  8vo.  Thirty  copies  on  Japan  paper  and  150  on 
hand-made  paper. 

42.  "Captains    Courageous":    A  Story    of  the    Grand 

Banks.  Illustrations.  New  York  :  The  Century  Com- 
pany. 1897.  i2mo.  pp.  viii-323.  Also  London  : 
Macmillan  &  Co. 


Bibliography  205 


43.  Steve  Brown's  Bunyip,    and    Other    Stories.     By 

J.  A.  Barry.  Fifth  edition.  London,  1897.  Mac- 
queen.      8vo.      Introductory  verses  by  Kipling. 

44.  An    Alphabet  of    Twelve    Sports.       First    edition. 

London,  1897.  William  Heinemann.  4to.  Illus- 
trated by  William  Nicholson. 

45.  The  Writings  in    Prose    and    Verse  of    Rudyard 

Kipling.  Outward  Bound  Edition.  12  volumes. 
8vo.  New  York  :  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1897.  I. 
"  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills."  II.  "  Soldiers  Three, 
and  Military  Tales,1 '  Part  I.  III.  "Soldiers  Three, 
and  Military  Tales,11  Part  II.  IV.  "In  Black  and 
White.11  V.  "The  Phantom  'Rickshaw,  and  Other 
Stories.11  VI.  "Under  the  Deodars,  and  other  Sto- 
ries.11 VII.  "The  Jungle  Book.11  VIII.  "The 
Second  Jungle  Book.11  IX.  "  The  Light  that  Failed.11 
X.  "TheNaulahka.11  XI.  "Verses.11  XII.  "Cap- 
tains Courageous.11 

46.  The  Day's  Work.     Illustrations.     New  York  :  Double- 

day  &  McClure.      1898.      Crown  8vo.      pp.431. 

47.  A    Fleet    in    Being  :    Notes  of  Two  Trips    with    the 

Channel  Squadron.  London  :  Macmillan  &  Co. 
1898.  Crown  8vo.  (A  series  of  articles  first  contrib- 
uted to  the  Morning  Post.) 

48.  Rudyard    Kipling's    Works.      Brushwood    Edition. 

15  volumes,  including  general  index.  Large  i2mo. 
New  York  :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  and  E.  P.  Dutton  & 
Co.,  1899.  (This  edition  includes  "  The  Day's  Work,1  * 
and  "Departmental  Ditties,11  and  the  following  stories 
not  included  in  the  Outward  Bound  Edition  :  "  Brug- 
glesmith,11  "Lang  Men  o1  Larut,11  "Wreck  of  the 
Visigoth,"  "Record  of  Badalia  Herodsfoot,11  and 
"  Dream  of  Duncan  Parenness.") 


206  A   Kipling   Primer 

49.  From    Sea    to    Sea.        Letters    of  Travel.        Includes, 

besides  hitherto  unpublished  matter,  an  accurate  text 
of  "  American  Notes,"  "Letters  of  Marque,"  "The 
City  of  Dreadful  Night,"  "The  Smith  Administra- 
tion," etc.  Authorized  Edition.  New  York  :  Double- 
day  &  McClure.  1899.  z  vols.  i2mo.  pp.  xiii- 
460  j   ix-400. 

50.  The      Works     of      Rudyard     Kipling.        Swastika 

Edition.  Authorized  and  copyrighted  by  the  author, 
with  a  Biographical  Sketch  by  Charles  Eliot  Norton. 
Includes,  besides  the  books  in  the  Outward  Bound  Edi- 
tion, "The  Day's  Work,"  "  Departmental  Ditties," 
and  "From  Sea  to  Sea."  15  vols.  nmo.  New 
York.  1899.  (Issued  jointly  byD.  Appleton  &  Co., 
the  Century  Co.,  and  the  Doubleday  &  McClure  Co., 
and  marketed  by  the  book  department  of  the  H.  B. 
Claflin  Co.) 

Note.  —  The  foregoing  list  of  first  editions  is  intended 
more  for  the  general  reader  than  for  the  bibliographer.  It  is 
based  on  the  bibliographies  of  R.  F.  Roden  (IV.  Y.  Times) 
and  E.  D.  North  (Book  Buyer.)  The  former  list  has  the 
advantage  of  embodying  annotations  added  to  the  earlier  bibli- 
ography (Mr.  North's)  by  Mr.  Kipling. 


A    BIBLIOGRAPHY    OF    REFERENCE 
ARTICLES 

Rudyard  Kipling.  Francis  Adams.  Fortnightly  Review, 
Vol.  56  (o.s.),  p.  686,  November,  1891. 

Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  Tales.  Quarterly  Review,  Vol.  175, 
p.    132,   July,  1892. 

Mr.  Kipling's  Work,  So  Far.  W.  H.  Bishop.  Forum,  Vol. 
19,  p.  476,  June,  1895. 

Rudyard  Kipling  as  a  Poet.  Montgomery  Schuyler.  Forum, 
Vol.  22,  p.  406,  December,  1896. 

The  Tales  of  Rudyard  Kipling.  Edinburgh  Review,  Vol. 
i74,  P-  132,  July,  1 89 1. 

Mr.  Kipling's  Stories.  J.  M.  Barrie.  Contemporary  Re- 
view, Vol.  59,  p.   364,  March,   1891. 

Kipling's  "  Seven  Seas  "  an  Atavism.  Charlotte  Porter.  Poet- 
Lore,  Vol.  9,  No.  2,  p.  291,  April,  1897. 

The  Sincerest  Form  of  Flattery.  1.  Of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling. Cornhill  Magazine,  Vol.  62  (Vol.  15  n.s.),  p. 
367,  October,  1890. 

Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  Verse.  Francis  Adams.  Fortnightly 
Review,  Vol.  60  (o.s.),  p.  590,  November,  1893. 

Cervantes,   Zola,    Kipling  &   Co.      Brander   Matthews.      Cos- 
mopolitan, Vol.   14,  p.   609,  March,   1893. 
.Editor's  Study.      Harpers,  Vol.  81,  p.  801,  October,  1890. 

The  New  Csesar.  Julian  Hawthorne.  Lippincotfs,  Vol.  46, 
p.  571,  October,  1890. 

The  Scientific   Spirit  in   Kipling's  Work.      Popular  Science 
Monthly,  Vol.  52,  p.  269,  December,  1897. 
(207) 


208  A   Kipling   Primer 


The  Ascendency  of  Kipling.  Arena  (editorial),  Vol.  19, 
p.  424,  March,  1898. 

The  Works  of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling.  Edinburgh  Review, 
Vol.  187,  No.  1  (whole  number  383),  p.  203,  Jan- 
uary, 1898. 

Kipling's  Women.  A.  B.  Maurice.  Bookman  (N.Y.), 
Vol.  8,  No.  5,  January,  1899. 

The  Religion  of  Mr.  Kipling.  W.  B.  Parker.  New  World, 
December,  1898. 

The  Religious  Element  in  Kipling's  Work.  W.  B.  Parker, 
Public  Opinion  (N.Y.),  Vol.  23,  p.  435,  Sept.  30,  1897. 
(Quoted  from  Boston  Transcript.') 

The  Old  Saloon.  Blackwood^s  Magazine,  Vol.  150,  p.  728. 
(Includes  a  review  of  "  Life's  Handicap.") 

A  Sketch  of  Rudyard  Kipling.  Charles  D.  Lanier.  (Ameri- 
can) Review  of  Reviews,  Vol.  15,  p.  173,  February, 
1897. 

The  Books  of  Rudyard  Kipling.  Goring  Cope.  Gentleman'' s 
Magazine,  Vol.  273,  p.  136,  August,  1892. 

The  Madness  of  Mr.  Kipling.  By  an  Admirer.  Macmillan'' s 
Magazine,  No.  470,  December,  1898. 

Kipling's  Tales.     Nation,  Vol.  51,  p.  465,  Dec.  11,  1890. 

Rudyard  Kipling  the  Poet.  London  Quarterly  Review, 
No.  178  (n.s.),  No.  58,  January,  1898. 

Rudyard  Kipling  and  His  Stories.  Book  Buyer,  Vol.  7,  No. 
9  (n.s.),  October,  1890. 

On  Some  Tales  of  Mr.  Kipling's.  S.  R.  Crockett.  Book- 
man (N.Y.),  Vol.  1,  No.  1,  February,  1895. 

Rudyard  Kipling.     John  D.  Adams.     Book  Buyer,  Vol.  13, 
No.  10,  November,  1896. 
>>A  Bibliography  of  First    Editions   of  Rudyard    Kipling.      Er- 
nest Dressel  North.       Book  Buyer,    Vol.    13,   No.    10, 
November,  1896. 


Bibliography  209 

Mr.  Kipling's  Ballads  of  "  The  Seven  Seas."  Edmund  Clar- 
ence Stedman,  Book  Buyer,  Vol.  13,  No.  10,  No- 
vember, 1896. 

Mr.  Kipling's  Expression  of  Simple  Human  Qualities.      Will- 
iam   Morrow.     Harvard  Monthly,    Vol.    26,    No.    4, 
June,  1898. 
^  Mr.  Kipling's  View  of  Life.      William  Morrow.      Harvard 
Monthly,  Vol.  26,  No.  5,  July,  1898. 

Impressions  of  Mr.  Kipling.  H.  McCulloch,  Jr.  Harvard 
Monthly,  Vol.  11,  No.  4,  January,  1891. 

Some  Minor  Poets.  Quarterly  Review,  Vol.  186,  p.  323, 
October,    1897.      (Seven  pages  devoted  to  Kipling.) 

Rudyard  Kipling's  "Seven  Seas,  and  Other  Poems."     Review 

of  Reviews  (English),  Vol.  14,  p.  553,  December,  1896. 

"■  My  First  Book.       Rudyard  Kipling.    McClure's    Magazine, 

Vol.    3,    No.    6,   November,    1894. 
A  A   French   Criticism   of  Rudyard    Kipling.      Review  of  Re- 
views   (English),   Vol.     5,    p.    469,    May,    1892.       [An 
abstract  of  M.  W.    Bentzon's  article  in  the   Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes  for  April  1,  1892.] 

Recent  Poetry.  Nation,  Vol.  63,  p.  441,  Dec.  10,  1896. 
["Seven  Seas,"  etc.] 

Kipling  in  India.  E.  Kay  Robinson.  McClure^s  Magazine, 
Vol.  7,  No.  2,  July,  1896. 

The  Laureate  of  the  Larger  England.  W.  D.  Howells. 
McClure"s  Magazine,   Vol.    8,   No.    5,    March,    1897. 

The  Seven  Seas.  Critic,  Vol.  26,  New  Series,  p.  337, 
Nov.    28,    1896. 

"Captains  Courageous."  Critic,  Vol.  28,  New  Series, 
p.    264,   Nov.    6,    1897. 

A  Gentile  Criticism.  W.  B.  Smith.  Critic,  Vol.  29, 
(n.s. ),  p.  12,  Jan.  1,  1898.  [An  adverse  opinion  on 
the  "Recessional."  Replied  to  by  T.  F.  Watson  in 
Critic  for  Jan.    29,  1898.] 


2io  A   Kipling   Primer 


Another  Jungle  Book.  Joel  Chandler  Harris.  Book  Buyer, 
Vol.  12,  No.  ii,  December,   1895. 

A  Boy  "Who  Found  Himself."  Nathan  Haskell  Dole. 
Book  Buyer,  Vol.  15,  No.  4,  November,  1897.  ["  Cap- 
tains Courageous."] 

Mr.    Kipling's    Green   Mountain    Home.      Critic,    Jan.    21, 

1893. 
"Mr.  Kipling's  Tales.     Athenozum,  1890,  II.,  p.  887,  Decem- 
ber 27. 
"In  Black  and   White.     Athenceum,    1890,   II.,  p.  349,  Sep- 
tember 1  3 . 

The  Light  that  Failed.  Athenceiun,  1891,  I.,  p.  497,  April 
18. 

Life's  Handicap.     Athenceum,  1891,  II.,  p.  279,  August  29. 

Barrack-Room  Ballads.  Athen&um,  1892,  I.,  p.  629,  May 
14. 

The  Naulahka.      Athenceum,    1892,   II.,   p.    154,  July   30. 

Many  Inventions.      AthencEum,    1893,     II.,   p.    55,  July   8. 
*  Departmental  Ditties  and  Soldiers  Three.      Athenceian,  1890, 
I.,  p.  527,  April  26. 

The  Jungle  Book.     Athenceum,    1894,  I.,   p.  766,  June  16. 

The  Second  Jungle  Book.  Athenceiun,  1896,  I.,  p.  278, 
February  29. 

"  Captains  Courageous."      Athenceum,  1897,   II.,  p.  589. 

The    Day's  Work.       Atimiceum,    1898,   II.,   p.    521,   Oct. 

Two     Volumes    of    Satirical    Verse.     Spectator,    Vol.     65, 

p.    345,   Sept.    13,    1890. 
Rudyard  Kipling's  First  Novel.     Spectator,  Vol.  66,  p.  174, 

Jan.  31,  1891. 
Stories    by     Mr.    Rudyard     Kipling.       Spectator,    Vol.    67, 

p.   417,  Sept.  26,  1891. 
Mr.   Kipling  on  Village  Life  in   America.     Spectator,   Vol. 

68,  p.   522,   April   16,    1892. 


Bibliography  211 


Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  Ballads.      Spectator ;  Vol.  68,  p.  644, 

May  7,  1892. 
A  Story  of  West  and  East.     ["  Naulahka."]     Spectator,  Vol. 

69,  p.  196,  Aug.  6,  1892. 

•  Soldiers    Three.      Spectator,   Vol.    62,   p.   403,    March    23, 

1889. 
Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  Last  Volume.      ["  Many  Inventions."] 

Spectator,  Vol.   71,   p.   86,  July   15,    1893. 
Mr.    Rudyard  Kipling's  New  Ballads.     Spectator,  Vol.  77, 

p.  728,  Nov.  21,  1896. 
Mr.  Kipling's  Hymn.       [A  page  editorial  on  the  "  Recession- 
al.""     Spectator,  Vol.  79,  p.   106,  July  24,  1897. 
"  Captains  Courageous."      Spectator,  Vol.    79,  p.  646,  Nov. 

6,  1897. 
Rudyard  Kipling's  New  Book.      ["  Day's  Work."]       Spec- 
tator, Vol.  81,  p.  526,  Oct.  15,  1898. 
Departmental  Ditties.     W.  M.  Hunter.     Academy,   Vol.  34, 

p.   128,  Sept.  1,  1888. 
The  Light  that  Failed.     Lionel  Johnson.     Academy,  Vol.  39, 

p.  319,  April  4,  1 89 1. 
Life's  Handicap.    Lionel  Johnson.    Academy,  Vol.  40,  p.  327, 

Oct.  17,  1891. 
Barrack-Room  Ballads.     Lionel  Johnson.    Academy,  Vol.  41, 

p.  509,  May  28,  1892. 
The  Naulahka.    Percy  Addleshaw.    Academy,  Vol.  42,  p.  44, 

July  16,  1892. 
Many  Inventions.      Percy   Addleshaw.      Academy,  Vol.  44, 

p.  7,  July   1,  1893. 
The  Jungle   Book.     Percy  Addleshaw.     Academy,  Vol.    45, 

p.  530,  June  30,  1894. 
The  Seven  Seas.     Acadony,  Vol.  50,  p.  377,  Nov.  14,  1896. 

♦  Mr.    Kipling's   Seacraft.     By  a   Sailor.     Academy,  Vol.   50, 

p.   378,  Nov.  14,  1896. 
*"Mr.  Kipling  as  Journalist.      By  one  of  his  Editors.      (E.  K. 
R.)     Academy,  Vol.  50,  p.  458,  Nov.  28,  1896. 


212  A   Kipling   Primer 

'Mr.  Kipling's  Beginnings.     Academy,  Vol.  51,   p.  476,  May 

1,  1897. 
The  New  Kipling.      [Review  of  "  Captains  Courageous."] 

Academy,  Vol.  52,  Fiction  Supplement,  p.  98,  Oct.    30, 

1897. 
Book  Reviews  Reviewed.     ["  Captains  Courageous."]     Acad- 
emy, Vol.  52,  p.  359,  Oct.  30,  1897. 
The  Day's  Work.     Academy,  Vol.  55,  p.  76,  Oct.  15,  1898. 

(Also    p.    91    for   summary   of  contemporary  opinion   on 

"D.W.") 
Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling.      [The  National  Observer.]      Quoted 

in  Critic  (n.s.),  Vol.  16,  p.  340,  Dec.  12,  1891. 
Mr.  Kipling's  Ballads.     Saturday  Review,  Vol.  73,  p.    580, 

May  14,  1892. 
The  Naulahka.    Saturday  Review,  Vol.  74,  p.  226,  Aug.  20, 

1892. 
Many  Inventions.     Saturday  Review,  Vol.  75,    p.  659,  June 

17,  1893. 
The  Seven  Seas.      Saturday  Review,  Vol.  82,  p.   549,  Nov. 

21,  1896. 
Critical  Introduction  to  "  Mine  Own  People."  (United  States 

Book  Company.)      Henry  James. 
Critical  Introduction  to  "  The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  and 

Other  Stories."      {Harper's.)     Andrew  Lang. 
The  Secret  of  the  East.      [Review  of  Kipling's  Works.]      Ed- 
ward E.  Hale,  Jr.     Dial  (Chicago),  Vol.  23,  p.  42,  July 

16,  1897. 
Kipling's  Men.    Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice.    Book?nan  (N.Y.), 

Vol.  8,  No.  4,  December,  1898. 
Mr.    Kipling    at   the    Cross-Roads.      Harry    Thurston    Peck. 

Bookman    (N.Y.),   Vol.    8,    No.   4,   December,    1898. 
The  Seven  Seas.     Bookman  (N.Y.),  Vol.  4,  No.  5,  January, 

1897. 
The  Poetry  of  Rudyard  Kipling.      Charles  Eliot  Norton.     At- 
lantic Monthly,  Vol,  79,  p.  in,  January,  1897. 


Bibliography  2 1  3 


Mr.  Kipling's  "  Captains  Courageous.' '   (In  "  Notable  Recent 

Novels.")    Atlantic  Monthly,  Vol.  80,  p.  855,  Decem- 
ber, 1897. 
R.   Kipling  :   Comparative  Psychologist.     (In  "  Contributors' 

Club . "  )    Atlantic  Monthly,  Vol .  8 1 ,  p .  8  5  8 ,  June,  1898. 
Truth  to  Fact  in  "  Captains  Courageous."    McClure1 s  Maga- 
zine, Vol.  9,  p.  618,    May,  1897. 
Kipling's  View  of  Americans.      George    Harley    McKnight. 

Bookman  (N.Y.),  Vol.  7,  No.  2,  April,  1898. 
Rudyard  Kipling  as  a  Poet.      Frank  Gaylord  Gilman.     Arena, 

Vol.  20,  No.  3,  Sept.,  1898. 
The  Second  Jungle   Book.      G'itic,    Vol.   24  (n.s.),  p.    338, 

Nov.  23,  1895. 
Kipling.      Robert  Bridges.      ("Droch.")      Outlook  (N.Y.), 

Vol.  61,  No.  5,  Feb.  4,  1899. 
The  Works   of  Mr.  Kipling.      Black-woods  Magazine,  Vol. 

164,  p.  470,  Oct.,  1898. 
Kipling's  Retrocessional.      [An  editorial  on  "  The  Truce  of 

the  Bear."]      Nation,  Vol.  67,  p.  292,  Oct.  20,  1898. 
My  Contemporaries  in  Fiction.     V.     Rudyard  Kipling.    David 

Christie  Murray.      Canadian  Magazi?ie,  Vol.  8,  p.  475, 

April,  1897. 
The  New  Poet  of  the  English  Race.     J.  O.  Miller.     Canadian 

Magazine,  Vol.  8,  p.  456,  March,  1897. 
Mr.    Kipling    as    a   Moralist.       J.    B.    P.       Critic,   Vol.    33 

(o.s.),  p.  360,  Nov.,  1898. 
Mr.  Kipling  as  an  Artist.     J.  B.  P.      Critic,  Vol.  33    (o.s.), 

p.  473,  Dec,  1898. 
Mr.  Kipling   on   Newfoundland.      Critic,    Vol.   28  (n.s.),  p. 

236,  Oct.  23,  1897. 
Stevenson,    Kipling,    and   Anglo-Saxon   Imperialism.      E.    H. 

Mullin.     Book-Buyer,  Vol.  18,  No.  2,  March,  1899. 
Kipling's    Verse-People.      Arthur    Bartlett    Maurice.       Book' 

man  (N.Y.),  Vol.  9,  No.  1,  March,  1899. 


214  A   Kipling   Primer 

Kipling's  Suppressed  Works.  Luther  S.  Livingston.  Book- 
man (N.Y.),  Vol.  9,  No.  i,  March,  1899. 

Kipling's  Brattleboro'  Home.  Dr.  Theodore  F.  Wolfe.  Lit- 
erary Haunts  and  Homes.  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.,  Phila- 
delphia,   1899,   pp.   206—214. 

Rudyard  Kipling.  Personal  Sketches  of  Recent  Authors,  H. 
T.  Griswold  (McClurg),  1899. 

Kipling's  Worth  to  the  World.  Julian  Hawthorne.  The 
New  Voice,  Vol.  16,  No.  11,  March  18,  1899. 

Kipling  at  School.  Michael  Gifford  White  (an  old  school- 
fellow). Independent,  Vol.  51,  p.  752,  March  16, 
1899. 

Rudyard  Kipling  in  his  Vermont  Home.  The  Rev.  Charles 
O.Day.  Congregationalist,  Vol.  84,  No.  11,  March 
16,  1899. 

Kipling  in  America.  (American)  Review  of  Reviews,  Vol. 
r9,  No.  4,  April,  1899. 

The  Boyhood  of  Famous  Authors.  William  H.  Rideing. 
T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.,  1897,  8vo.  Rudyard  Kipling, 
pp.  200—21 1 . 

An  Apocalypse  of  Kipling.  Prof.  George  F.  Genung,  D.D. 
Independent,  Vol.  51,  p.  888,  March  30,  1899.  [A 
study  of  the  poem  addressed  to  Wolcott  Balestier,  which 
introduces  "  Ballads  and  Barrack-Room  Ballads."] 

The  New  Poetry.  Maurice  Thompson.  I?idependent,  Vol. 
51,  p.  608,  March  2,  1899.  [A  conservative  estimate  of 
Kipling.] 

The  Kipling  Hysteria.  Henrv  Austin.  Dial,  Vol.  26,  p. 
327,  May  16,  1899.      (An  adverse  criticism.) 

Mr.  Kipling's  "Cynical  Jingoism"  toward  the  Brown  Man. 
Henry  Wysham  Lanier.  Dial,  Vol.  26,  p.  389,  June 
16,  1899. 

A  Japanese  View  of  Kipling.  Adachi  Kinnosuke.  Arena, 
Vol.  21,  No.  6,  June,  1899. 


Bibliography  215 

Rudyard  Kipling  and  Racial  Instinct.  Henry  Rutgers  Mar- 
shall.     Century,  Vol.  58,  No.  3,  July,  1899. 

The  Religion  of  Rudyard  Kipling.  Jabez  T.  Sunderland. 
New  England  Magazine ,   Vol.  20,  No.  5,  July,  1899. 

Rudyard  Kipling  :  A  Biographical  Sketch.  Charles  Eliot 
Norton.  McClure' s  Magazine,  Vol.  13,  No.  3,  July, 
1899.  Republished  from  the  Swastika  edition  of  Kip- 
ling's works. 

The  Unfamiliar  Rudyard  Kipling.  Perriton  Maxwell.  Satur- 
day Evening  Post,  Philadelphia,  Vol.  172,  No.  5,  July 
29,  1899. 


INDEX   TO    AUTHORITIES    QUOTED 

Academy.  —  88,    92,    98,    103,    105,     106,   107,     no, 

113,   115,    128,    132,  140,    142,    145,    146,  149, 

163,    166,    170,    171,    181,    189. 
Adams ,    Franch.  —  90,   104,   106,  in,  119,   122,  123, 

133,    160,    173,    174. 
Adams,    John   D.  —  177. 
Allen,    James   Lane.  —  163. 
Atbenceum.  —  81,  90,    101,   103,    104,   112,   115,   116, 

122,  123,    124,    127,    130,    136,    138,     141,    142, 

144,    150,    155,    158,    162,    164,   166,    174,    182, 

185,    188. 
Atlantic   Monthly.  —  10 1,    102,    146,    180,    197. 
Austin,   Henry.  —  145,    184,    187. 
Barrie,    J.    M.  —  45,   138,    143,    164. 
Besant,    Sir    Walter.  —  163. 
Blackwoods   Magazine.  —  60,   104,   112,   123,   129,   140, 

172,    175,    177,    189,    196. 
Book  Buyer.  —  102,    134,    177. 
Bookman.  —  87,    98,    102,   143. 
Boston    Transcript.  —  14,    142,   184,    198. 
Century   Magazine.  —  112,    148,    156,    190,  198.    (See 

also  Gosse.) 
Congregationalist.  —  14,  24. 
Contemporary   Review. — 45,   138. 
Cosmopolitan.  — 97,   189. 
Critic—  92,   145,   153,  159,   178,   197. 
(zi7) 


2i  8  A   Kipling   Primer 

Crockett,  S.    R.  —  143. 

Current   Literature.  —  29. 

Day,  Rev.  C.   O.  —  24. 

Dial.  —  145,   184,   187. 

Dole,    Nathan  Haskell.  —  102. 

Edinburgh   Review.  — 94,    10 1,    127,    137,    144,    146, 

160,    164,    165,    173,    176,    181,    183,    194. 
Fortnightly  Review.  — 90,    104,    106,    III,    119,    122, 

123,    133,   160,   173,   174. 
Gentleman'' s   Magazine.  —  115,   142. 
Gosse,    Edmund.  — 91,   106,    112,  119,    130,   148,  156, 

164,    167,    174,    175,  176,    177,    179,    180,    186, 

190. 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler.  —  125,   164. 
How  ells,    William   Dean.  — 32,  87. 
Independent.  —    107. 
Johnson,    Lionel.  —  106,   107,   113. 
Lang,  Andrew.  —  119,    176. 
Literary   Digest.  —  187. 
Literary   News.  —  153. 
Literary    World  (London).  —  153. 
Literature.  —  102,   181. 
London   Daily    Chronicle.  —  191. 
London   Daily   News.  —  151. 
London    Times.  —  1  o  1 . 
London    World.  —  22,  29,  176. 
Macmillan's    Magazine. — 97,   169,   184,   191. 
Marshall,  H.  R.  —  198. 

McClure's   Magazine.  —  14,  18,  19,  99,  189. 
Moult  on,    Louise    Chandler.  —  161. 
Nation.  —  183. 


Index   to   Authorities  Quoted     219 

National   Observer.  —  104,   156,   198. 

New    World.  —  1  26. 

New    York    Times.  —  187. 

Norton,    Charles   Eliot.  —  146,   180. 

Pall  Mall  Gazette.  —  144. 

Parker,    W.    B. —  103,   126. 

Peck,  Harry    Thurston.  —  98. 

Poet- Lore.  —  61. 

Popular  Science   Monthly.  —  39. 

Porter,    Charlotte.  —  61. 

Public    Opinion.  —  103. 

Quarterly   Review. — 47,   120,   138,   157. 

Review  of  Reviews  (English).  —  187,   194,   195. 

Riley,    James    Whit  comb.  —  20,  39. 

Robinson,  E.  Kay. —  14,   19,  29. 

Russell,  W.    Clark.  —  115. 

San   Francisco   Examiner.  —  28. 

Saturday   Review.  —  40,92,    93,    114,    120,    130,    144, 

145,    157,    196. 
Spectator. — 41,  92,    94,    97,  99,    101,    104,  115,   129, 
141,    142,    144,    150,    155,    162,    163,    181,   193. 
Stead,    W.    T.  —  187. 
Stedman,    Edmund  C.  —  106,   133,   172. 

Wendell,    Barrett. —  187. 

Westminster  Review.  —  155. 

Wilkie,    George  Arnold.  —  28. 

Wolfe1  s  "  Literary   Haunts  and  Homes.'''' —  24. 

Zangwill,    L.  —  97,   189. 


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